


The Hole Is Still There

by Croik



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Cannibalism, Disturbing Themes, Gen, Gore, Self-Harm, silent hill au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-24
Updated: 2014-04-06
Packaged: 2017-12-09 08:59:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 45,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/772395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Croik/pseuds/Croik
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Will wakes up at home, he finds his dogs are gone.  So are all his food, his clothes, his gun, and everything else he owns.  But there is a hole, and on the other side, a nightmare that only Hannibal can wake him from (Silent Hill au)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Дыра всё ещё там](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6799282) by [Tinumbra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tinumbra/pseuds/Tinumbra)



> This is a Silent Hill au drawing mostly from The Room, but in a very loose sense, so you don't have to know anything about that game to read this fic. Comments and crit welcome and appreciated!
> 
> EDIT: Should have said this earlier, but the fic takes place after ep 6, Entrée. And I took off the "harm to animals" warning that used to be there because I realized I don't have it in me to hurt Will's dogs after all.
> 
> P.S. The rating is for violence, not for sex.

When Will Graham woke up, the dogs were gone.

Their absence was the first noticeable symptom. The lack of wet noses in his ear and claws on the carpet made a void of his home. The silence was unnatural, stifling. He sat in the center of his living room, staring in blank confusion at the many spaces where dogs should have been. He looked for them. There was not one dog in the house. There was hair, odor, and a stain here and there to show that there had once been dogs. Not anymore.

Will tried to look for them in the yard, but the front door wouldn't open, nor would the back. The knobs turned and the locks unlatched but the doors remained frozen, as if he were trying to open walls. The windows were hazy with fog that he couldn't wipe away, and he couldn't open those, either. He pawed at the sills and broke the door knob off the back exit in his efforts, to no effect.

More than dogs were missing. There was no food in the refrigerator, no water in the pipes, no clothes in the drawers. There was no electricity in the sockets or in batteries. There was no gun and no bullets. There was no light, no time. Will paced the house, looking for anything, from toothbrush to termite, but aside from furniture it was empty.

What there was, was a hole. He found it in the bedroom, jagged and gaping in the wall just above the bed he hardly slept in. The wallpaper had been stripped away around it, the drywall bashed in. Two studs had been removed, though by what manner of tool Will couldn't tell. The inside of the hole was entirely black, and it stank of cold earth. When Will passed his hand over the opening he could feel a breeze. It was the only breath in the house other than his own.

"Oh," said Will. "I'm dreaming."

Will didn't usually know he was dreaming. More often than not he thought that every scene and experience was real until the dogs woke him, or his phone went off, or someone shook his shoulder. He thought it strange that the explanation would even occur to him without any of those things, but it didn't really matter. He wanted to be out of his shadow of a house.

So Will crawled into the hole. At the time it seemed like the only reasonable thing to do.

The opening was just wide enough for him. By all rights he should have passed straight through into the hallway, but the hole kept going, on and on for what felt like hours of slow, cramped progress. The surface beneath his hands and knees went from solid wood, to moldy wood, to moist, packed earth. There was no light and he fantasized about crawling into graves. Just when he was considering giving up to wait for a dog's good morning kiss, his hands bumped into a wall of dirt.

"Convenient," said Will. He could stop after all. But when he twisted in place and felt the cool, wet pressure of the earth against his shoulders, a jolt of instinctual panic drove him forward. He plunged his hands into the obstruction and felt it weaken. With mounting urgency he tore and pulled, clawing like an animal. He tasted soil in his mouth and nose, making him frantic, until something suddenly gave way. The dirt fell all around him and he dug his feet in, shoving himself into the opening. His hands broke free into open air and he _pulled_.

Will came out of a hole in the ground. As he rolled onto his back, gasping and victorious, he couldn't remember at what point his tunnel had gone from horizontal to vertical. It didn't really matter. He was dreaming.

Will pushed to his feet. Dead leaves crackled with his every movement, but even when he stood perfectly still, the world around him hissed and swayed. He sighed in heavy relief--at least here wasn't empty. A chill wind tickled the hair of his forearms upright. The trees rocked back and forth like dead-eyed subway passengers. Clouds raced overhead. The world was dour and gray but it was _alive_.

When Will glanced to the forest floor he half expected the hole he had come through to be gone, but it was still there, as rough but inviting as it had been in his bedroom. "Good," he muttered, "at least I can get back if I need to."

Not yet interested in returning--to the shadow-house or reality--Will headed into the line of trees. It was autumn and everything crinkled like paper beneath his feet. A flash of movement caught his eye, and he turned just in time to see a dark shape pass through the thicket to the west. He followed. Something large and black was darting about in the underbrush. He was so certain of what it was until he heard the noise: a thick, choking growl unlike anything a natural animal ought to make. Will stopped in his tracks and listened to the unseen beast scuffling and snorting in the dirt. When the wind changed course, a rotten stench plumed into his nostrils and left him gagging.

The beast stopped. Will covered his nose and mouth and prayed he hadn't given himself away. Slow seconds ticked by in agony, and then the thing was gone, dashing deeper into the woods.

Will followed. With greater effort at stealth he tracked the crooked path of his quarry through the forest until he came out on an old driveway of packed dirt and smashed gravel. A log cabin squatted among the ferns. The Hobbs' cabin.

It didn't look like it had the last time Will had seen it. The windows were broken in and the walls in a state of decay. Vines had grown up the sides and invaded the cabin's interior through every available orifice. The earth was taking it back. Will wished he could have warned it somehow; this place wasn't worth reclaiming.

He took a step forward, and something hot and wet squished between his toes. He didn't have to look to know what it was. He didn't even have it in him to feel nauseous. He just kept going, one bloody footprint following him up to the front door. It was open just a crack.

Will put his hand against the wood, and immediately from inside the house there came a scream--a shrill, human scream--a young woman. Will instinctually reached for his belt only to remember it wasn't there, let alone a gun or bullets to go in it. Still, he charged inside. His first breath of the cabin air left him doubled over and gagging again. The atmosphere was foul--he could taste rancid blood at the back of his throat. The world outside had been a dull, colorless smear, but within the rotting walls everything was red. Red was on the tables and chairs. Red was on the floors and walls. Red drizzled from the ceiling. It couldn't all be blood. It couldn't be.

A young woman was screaming from the attic. Will told himself that he was dreaming and that he should leave; there was no one to save and no reason for him to watch. By the time he got himself to say it out loud he was already on the stairs. Adrenaline flooded into his veins and within seconds he was in the antler room.

He saw it as he imagined Hobbs must have seen it. The antlers that had at one time only showed hints of their burden bore corpses, all eight of them neatly lined on either side of the space. Will had only seen their pictures once, but he recognized them. Elise Nichols, whom he strangled to death in her own bed, was prominently placed closest to the stairs. Will almost crashed right into her. He felt the points of the antlers against his chest, and when he pushed away, a lock of her hair drew a fleeting caress across his cheek.

The girl was still screaming. It was Abigail; the realization set Will's nerves on fire, and he turned, stumbling on the slick wooden floor. She was already on the antlers, mounted and split open. It was _her_ blood under his toenails. Will took one look at the gore clinging to the spears through her torso and knew she wouldn't survive, but he ran to her anyway.

Abigail stopped screaming when she saw him and reached out. "Mr. Graham..."

Will stopped, unintentionally gripping one of the antlers for balance. "Abigail..." He touched her face as if it might be some comfort to her. "Oh God, how did you get here?" he choked out. "Who did this to you?"

Abigail's face went white. She reached for him again, but before he could take her hand, something grabbed him from behind. A pair of wide hands dug into his armpits and heaved him about, tossing him to the floor. The filth saturated his thin undershirt. Before he could get his bearings or his balance the thing was on him again. Knobby fingers clutched at his throat, and he fought back, kicking and cursing. His attacker was a smear of red and black and it brayed like a mad animal. Will clawed and struggled until finally he was able to bend his knees up, and with all his strength he threw it back.

The beast didn't right itself right away, giving Will time to clamber upright. His legs almost gave out and he had to seek balance against poor Elise Nichol's corpse. For a moment he was certain her hand was on his shoulder.

"Who are you?" he hollered, scanning the room for some kind of weapon. "What the hell are you?"

The creature lifted its head. Will thought at first that he was seeing things, distracted by his surroundings, but then it looked right at him and he knew he wasn't. It was roughly in the shape of a woman. Dark hair matted to its scalp, and from that rose a pair of crooked antlers. Its eyes were wide and black, and its skin was pale and stretched over its skull. Blood caked its drooping lips. But it wasn't until it stood that Will perceived the full horror of it. He wasn't looking at one grotesque figure, but an amalgamation of several. Each patch of bleached flesh was host to another face, or in some cases, part of a face. Eyes and cheeks and ears formed a bloody patchwork of a body--and teeth. _Teeth_ sprang from the joints of its knuckles, marked the rise of its clavicles and formed the ridge of its emaciated hips. It was a monster of broken mouths.

It attacked again, wailing, and Will threw his arms up in a poor defense. He grimaced in distant horror when the creature shoved him up against Elise Nichols and he felt the press of her dead breasts against his back. Abigail screamed as they butted against each other, their hands grasping. Will's fingers slipped into one of the mouths that made up the creature's bicep and it bit down. Skin tore from his knuckles. The pain put in him a burst of desperate strength, and he grabbed one of the creature's antlers and pulled with all his strength.

A tendon in its neck snapped; Will saw it pulse beneath the exposed span of its throat. He pulled harder, thrilling with success when the creature cried out in agony. It wasn't enough. Teeth were still sinking into him all over. With one hand trapped and the other keeping the worst of the jaws at bay, he could think of only one thing to do: he bit back.

Gooey flesh gave way beneath his jaws. Will's nostrils flared as he chewed into the meat of the creature's throat, tore it open with a yank of his head. Dark, vile blood poured from the wound and flowed over his tongue. He tried to keep from swallowing, but he needed to breathe, and he felt it trickle down into him, poisoning him, nourishing him.

They fell to the ground in a tangle of limbs. Will lost his bite on the creature's throat, so he pried at the open flesh with his fingers until his enemy was limp beneath him. He sat back on his heels, gasping, on the verge of retching, and surveyed his gruesome work.

Abigail Hobbs, twitching between his thighs.

Will stared for a long time. There was no one mounted on the far wall, and no blood there to imply that anyone ever had been. The girls had vanished from their hooks. There was only Will Graham and Abigail Hobbs twisted around each other in a pool blood. He started to reach down, to staunch her gaping wound, but there didn't seem to be a point. She stared back at him with wide blue eyes.

"Am I dreaming?" she asked, blood in her mouth.

Will touched her cheek again. "Yes," he said. "Yes, honey. You're just dreaming." He smoothed her eyes shut and she didn't fight him. "Shh. It's just a dream."

He cradled her in his hands and watched until she stopped bleeding.

***

Will Graham woke up to the bleating of his cell phone.

He was on the sofa in the living room. His limbs felt heavy and numb, and he blinked up at the ceiling, letting the horror drain out of him. Just a dream. He wasn't a liar yet.

The phone stopped ringing, and a moment later it chimed with a saved message. Will didn't feel compelled to check it until he realized, with a creeping sensation of dread, that the dogs were still missing. He called their names through the house, and when he got no answer, he pulled himself to his feet.

The house was still empty. Will shuddered, but rather than repeat his frantic search of the rooms he went straight to his phone and listened to the message.

"Will, it's Alana," the message said. She sounded pained. "I know Jack has got to be calling you by now, but please, don't answer it until I get there. I'm on my way now. I'm only ten minutes away--please, just wait for me. I'll be there soon."

Will sat back down on the sofa. Within seconds, the phone rang again. The display said "Crawford" and he thought he might be sick. "It was a dream," he said, and the emptiness of the house echoed back. "Just a dream."

Seven minutes later, Alana was at the door. He could barely see her through the haze on the front window, and her voice was muted, as if through a plastic bag.

"Will?" She knocked, but he might not have known if not for the tiny vibration through the door. "Are you up?"

"Alana." Will twisted the door knob and nothing happened. He pulled and shoved but nothing budged. "Alana! Can you hear me?" He pounded on the door, hoping that she could at least feel it through the wood, as he had.

"Will?" He thought that she had heard him, until started knocking again. "Will, please, just...let me in."

"I can't!" Will shouted. He slapped the glass with his open palm, close to her face, but she didn't even blink. "I'm right here, God damn it!"

Alana stepped back and moved to one of the windows. Will could only watch helplessly as she tried to peer inside, and then finally move around to the back. She resumed her knocking, calling, "Will, are you in there? Damn it, Jack."

Will looked around his house in mounting panic. He was trapped, or else he was losing his mind. Maybe he was dead. He touched his neck expecting to find a wound, checked his fingers for bite marks, but he was whole and untouched. His clothes were sweat-stained but there was no sign of the dirt or blood that had covered him.

He closed his eyes and thought about death. He remembered the dozens of ways he had envisioned it, tasted it, reveled in it. He had crafted in his mind elaborate portraits of Heaven and Hell and everything in between. Eternity alone in his own house shouldn't have frightened him compared to the fury of his imagination, but he was shaking. He couldn't make sense of it and he wanted to scream.

A second car pulled in, and though what stepped out was no more than a man-shaped smudge to Will's vision, he knew immediately who it was. Alana returned from the back yard and they conversed briefly in the driveway before stepping onto the porch.

"Will?" Hannibal called. He knocked on the door, and Will pressed both hands to it so he could feel it reverberate into his elbows. He could _feel_ it. "If you're in here, please, come to the door."

"I'm here," said Will. He leaned into the door, begging it. "I'm here, I'm--"

Hannibal turned the knob, and the door swung open. Air rushed into the dead house, bringing with it color and light. The somber weight lifted from Will's shoulders and the breath he hurried to take sounded like a gasp from a coma patient. Life sank into his pores, and as he stumbled into Hannibal's arms, reeling from unearned resurrection, tears stung his eyes.

"Steady," said Hannibal, and though he couldn't have understood, he gripped Will's elbows with firm support. "Take a breath, Will."

Will did so. The air tasted like autumn--day old rain and red-orange leaves. It filled his lungs with warmth. He winced against the morning sun and saw, prancing about in the yard, every one of the missing dogs. They yipped happily to see him, and he answered them with laughter.

"Oh, shit," he whispered. "I've never been so glad to see you." He gripped the hideously-European plaid of Hannibal's suit coat and could have cried.

"Will," Hannibal said gently, and his tone turned Will's heart to ice.

Alana was standing back. She wasn't wearing any make-up and her eyes were red. "Will, I'm so sorry," she said.

And Hannibal held him as the sky caved in.


	2. Chapter 2

Will sat at the kitchen table, drinking day-old coffee while Alana enumerated the many reasons why he shouldn't feel responsible for Abigail's death.

She had been found in her room at the hospital, having been last seen at movie night ten hours earlier. No one suspected foul play. There were no relatives to contact. Her body would be cremated, and Alana had volunteered to take the ashes to her hometown in Minnesota, where she could be with her mother.

Will listened, asking only a few questions. He didn't know what he was supposed to feel.

When Alana tried to get him to say more, Hannibal left the room. Will heard him moving about the house, a trail of dog paws following along. He reached the bedroom, and Will tensed all over, waiting for a declaration of surprise, or some even more ominous outcry. He heard nothing except when Hannibal closed the door behind him.

"Will," Alana said gently, drawing him back. "I know how you must feel. I feel it, too." She wiped her eyes. "Maybe there wasn't anything we could have done to save her after all."

Will pushed the stale coffee away from him. "I'm sorry, Alana," he said. "I know what it means to you, too."

They spent several minutes in silence, just holding each other's hands.

When Hannibal came back down, he asked if he and Will could have a moment alone. Alana agreed, and with a few of Will's tissues crumpled in her fist, she left. "Call me any time," she told Will on her way out the door. "Please."

Will and Hannibal sat at the kitchen table, facing each other. "So," said Will, watching his own hands as they stretched and clenched against the old wood. "Were you looking for a bloody knife up there?"

Hannibal watched him very closely, as he usually did, but there was something especially sharp in his expression. "You asked when it happened," he said. "And where, and if anyone had seen. You didn't ask how." When Will didn't respond, he continued. "I'm sure that Dr. Bloom noticed. If she asks for my opinion, I plan on telling her that you didn't want to give your imagination any details to work with. It must be hard enough for you already."

Will rubbed the knuckles on his right hand, expecting the skin to peel back and reveal jagged, white bone. He remembered his shredded fingers digging into the soft, rotten flesh of a beast with Abigail's face. He thought he might be sick.

"I know how she died," he said. "Her throat was torn out." He laced his fingers. "Did they find skin under her nails?"

"Yes. Her own." Hannibal was quiet for a long moment. "Do you feel as though you've done this?"

Will hesitated, but then he remembered all the things he had confessed to Hannibal already, and how ridiculous it seemed to hide anything from him. "I did kill her," he said. "In a dream I had, just before you got here."

"She died hours ago, Will."

"I know, but it was..." He shook his head, unable to rid himself of the taste of blood on his tongue. "It wasn't like any dream I've ever had. There was a hole in the wall, and I went through it. It took me to the Hobbs' cabin in Minnesota, and there was...this monster. But it was _Abigail_."

Hannibal's eyes narrowed slightly. "And you killed it."

"It's stupid." Will pressed both hands into his eyes. "I can't believe I'm even telling you this. I didn't kill her--I couldn't have killed her. But still..."

"Will," said Hannibal. "How many times have you dreamed of killing Abigail Hobbs?"

Will's stomach turned. He knew, from somewhere outside himself, how sick it was that Hannibal could even ask him that. "Several times," he whispered.

"Probability is in your favor, then."

Will lifted his eyes. There was still something strange in Hannibal's face--not the sorrow and loss he expected. Disappointment, maybe. "Are _you_ all right?" he asked quietly.

Hannibal's face didn't change, and yet it did, his eyes glossing over. He looked away. "The death of a young woman is always a tragedy," he said. "But there is a particular gift of regret reserved for doctors who fail their patients."

Will stared at him, breathless. It wasn't often that he saw anything of Hannibal other than patient, intellectual sympathy. "I'm sorry," he said, because he didn't know what else to say.

"Dr. Bloom is, of course, taking it very hard," Hannibal went on. "I imagine that for a while she will focus her attention on making sure that you are well, to keep from indulging her own grief. We will have to be each other's comfort in this difficult time."

Will leaned back in his chair. He let his gaze wander the kitchen, cataloguing the mugs, the coffee machine, the dishes in the sink. There was water in the tap and electricity in the walls. His home was his again--he wasn't dreaming and Abigail's death was real. It would catch up to him eventually, he was sure of it.

"I'll do my best," he said.

Hannibal stood. "I know our next session is not for another two days, but you can call me at any time," he said. "In fact, I hope that you will check in often. You would be doing me a favor."

"All right." Will followed him to the door. As they stood on the threshold, the door open and cool autumn air wafting in, he realized he didn't want Hannibal to leave. There wasn't anything to do or say, but when he glimpsed haze on the windows, it made him shudder. "I think I'll take a walk," he said, convincing himself. "Get out of the house for a while."

"I think that would be best," said Hannibal. "We'll speak again soon, Will. Take care of yourself." He stepped out, and because it seemed that a walk would require getting dressed first, Will closed the door behind him.

The life rushed out of the house.

When the door closed, the world went with it. Color and light and time were stripped away, and Will found himself again in a gray, silent void. He stood clutching the door knob, telling himself that it was only his imagination at work, that he was in shock from the terrible news he had been delivered. It would pass. He would open his eyes and spot dogs on the sofas. But he didn't.

"Dr. Lecter?" Will pulled on the door, which did him no good. He ran to the window and saw Hannibal still in the driveway, making his way, unrushed, to his car. "Dr. Lecter!" he shouted, pounding on the glass. Nothing budged or even shook beneath his fists. Hannibal just kept walking away.

He heard a noise from upstairs that he couldn't identify.

Will grabbed up his phone and then returned to the window. By then Hannibal was already at his car and climbing in. "Pick up the phone," Will hissed, listening to it ring over and over. "Answer your damn phone!"

Hannibal patted himself down and finally retrieved his cell. Held it to his ear. "Hello?"

"Dr. Lecter--" Will started to say, but he was cut off by shrill feedback from the phone's speaker. As he held the phone away from his ear the noise blared out into the room, piercing and unearthly. He could hear noises beneath it--sick, wet noises, like meat being flung around. It settled with a drone of heavy static.

"I'm just leaving his house now," said Hannibal, his voice barely recognizable beneath the commotion.

"How is he?" asked Crawford.

"As well as could be expected."

"Dr. Lecter?" Will shouted into the phone. "Jack? Can you hear me?"

"I want you to leave him alone for a while, Jack," Hannibal was saying. "He will need time to grieve. This is a heavier loss to him than you know."

"I'll give him whatever time I can. It hasn't been easy for any of us."

"Jack!" Will shook the phone and was tempted to smash it against the walls, but he told himself, no, at least he could still hear. It was a tenuous link to the outside but it was still a link. "Dr. Lecter, if you can hear me, please come back inside!"

Their conversation was lost to the static. Will pressed himself up against the window, watching in helpless panic as Hannibal hung up and started his car. He banged and hollered but could not prevent Hannibal from driving away.

Will spent the next three hours curled up in one corner of the sofa. He told himself over and over that the state of his house was only in his mind. Insomnia and shock had combined into a catastrophic psychotic break, he reasoned. He had been hallucinating more and more frequently, more and more convincingly, and at last the dam had broken. Too much time in the company of killers had wrought an illusion of death on him.

"Sleep," he said, drawing his knees to his chest. "Sleep, and when you wake up, it'll be back to normal." But he couldn't sleep, because he kept thinking about the noise from upstairs. It had come from the bedroom. He couldn't remember if it had been a crash, or a thump, or a squelch, but if he closed his eyes for too long he started to imagine a great stag descending from the second floor, and he would have to look to the stairs to prove it wasn't there.

The hours bled together, until Will had no idea how long had passed. The light coming in through the windows, dull and gray as it was, did not change in intensity or direction. His stomach began to complain with hunger and his mouth grew dry. But it was the quiet that gnawed at him more than anything. He couldn't remember the last time he went without a sound of canine pads on the floors, or even the buzz of spiders in the fields, the creak of wind in the rafters. He was alone with only his mind as company and nothing Hell could offer would frighten him more.

It was that fear which drove him back to the bedroom.

The hole was still there. It had grown; the last time it had been just large enough for Will to squeeze through, but three studs were missing instead of two, and the opening was jagged at the edges, as if something had ripped it wider from the inside. Something wanted him to have an easier passage, Will thought as he crept closer. He passed his hand over the black and felt cool wind caressing his palm.

Was Hell better than Purgatory? Will steeled his nerves and crawled inside.

As before, he crawled for what felt like hours. He skinned his knees on the wooden floor of the tunnel and bumped his elbows several times even with the greater space. Finally, he reached the end, and rather than have to claw through the dirt, he found himself climbing out of the hollowed out shell of a rotting oak tree.

He was in a field. Tall grass stretched out in all directions, swaying in the autumn wind like ocean waves. His feet stung with cold as he wandered up and down the rolling hills, but he savored every prickling goose bump. At least there was air and sound and feeling. He put his dead house further and further behind him.

After what felt like more hours of roaming, Will came to a rise. He could sense the empty space stretching out on the other side, and he hesitated to climb to the top. Monsters awaited him, he was sure of it, but he wasn't ready to return to the house. With a deep breath, he crested the hill and took in the new nightmare.

It was more of a crater than a valley. The hill terminated in rough tufts of grass, and the land below was carved out as if from some great mouth, leaving only dark, frothy soil. Mounds of dirt dotted the landscape in straight, ordered lines, like a military graveyard. Pale, dried limbs protruded from a few, their fingers crookedly grasping the air. As Will made his way down the embankment he noticed, with no surprise, a lattice of delicate mushrooms growing on and around each entombed corpse. He was descending into The Farmer's garden.

Will reached the bottom, and his bare feet sank into the moist soil. He felt it squish up between his toes with every step and leave residue behind. There was something sticky mixed in with the earth, and he thought what a cliché it would be, if it were blood. He didn't look down to preserve the integrity of his imagination.

A man's hand twitched in the ground ahead of him. Will watched it twist and jerk, until it finally came to rest pointing at somewhere down the line. He followed. One after another the corpses lent their assistance, guiding him with their gnarled fingers to the end of the row, where a grave lay open and waiting for him.

"No," said Will. "I don't think so."

It attacked him from behind. Will caught only a fleeting glimpse of something dark and misshapen before he was falling, and the grave swallowed him. Dirt poured over him from all sides, and he writhed, trying to claw out despite the torrent. It packed in around his legs and chest, filled his nose and mouth and ears. Within seconds he was trapped, unable to breathe, a taste of rancid blood soaking into all of his senses.

Will had thought a lot about death. He had imagined what it might feel like to have the air strangled out of his lungs, the world growing cold and black as his limbs went numb. What he felt then was a tickle at the back of his skull: something was burrowing through the earth. He didn't have it in him to fight, and he stayed very still as small, squishy tendrils prodded along and then into his scalp. The bone rotted away and the things were in his brain. Some distant, logical part of him knew it was impossible for him to feel the shoots poking about in his gray matter, but he did, and all at once something took hold of him.

Will tried to gasp, and contrary to his instinct felt no rush of panic when only dirt filled his throat. He was connected. His consciousness flooded outward, touching and mingling with each of the corpses that shared his crude graveyard. With a rush of emotion he realized that he _knew_ them, each of them, from their names down to their core. He saw flashes of their memories painted across his closed eyelids like a family slide show, flickering through childhood, through each rite of passage, through growth and love and heartache. They felt him, too. Each of his rotting peers experienced life through his eyes, and they rejoiced in him, in the connection they shared. It was just as Stammets had promised and it brought tears to Will's eyes. His gift had never been able to show him life like this.

He searched for Abigail. He knew she was dead, but he reached anyway, hoping she would reach back. Guiltily he wished that he had trusted Stammets enough to bury her after all, but then he felt a tug at the edge of his perception. He followed it into the heart of a young woman, and though she was familiar, it wasn't Abigail. Will watched her life flash before his eyes, full of joy and youthful indiscretions, up until picking up her insulin prescription from the local pharmacy.

Gretchen Speck.

Will's eyes flew open. She wasn't supposed to be there. He could have accepted his fate if it meant slipping peacefully away in the earthly arms of the dead, but _she_ was still alive. Her mother had sought him out at the lecture hall and clasped his hand, telling him with tears in her eyes that her daughter had woken from her coma. He had saved her life, just like Abigail, and she _shouldn't have been there._

Will shoved his hands into the dirt. Just like he had done in the tunnel he clawed and shoved and _propelled_ himself through the blood-soaked soil, until he was clambering out of the grave. His skin pulled in all directions as he slapped spongey mushrooms off his bare arms and legs. He felt bloated and clammy but it didn't stop him.

The grave next to him had a woman's hand sticking out of it. Will pounced on it, flinging soil in all directions. His fingers were numb but he cupped them together as best he could. The grave wasn't deep, and soon he was uncovering her arm, her chest, her face. He swept the dirt away from her eyes and mouth and prayed for her to take a breath.

"Gretchen?" He touched her cheeks, but his hands were so numb he couldn't tell if there was any warmth in them. He felt behind her head, and his fingers tangled in a thick lattice of fungal stalks protruding from her skull. Grimacing in apology, he yanked.

The roots snapped. As soon as she was free, Gretchen shuddered with a huge intake of breath. "You're all right," Will tried to comfort her, even as he felt her skull breaking away beneath his hands. "Gretchen, look at me--you're all right."

"No," she cried, kicking and squirming. "No!"

Something wrapped around Will's midsection and pulled. He was lifted clear out of the grave and tossed, spinning wildly through the air until he landed in a mound of freshly raised dirt. The stalks still imbedded in his brain twisted about, making him nauseous. When he rolled onto his back he was finally able to see the beast.

It towered over him, a mass of pulsing funguses and twisting vines. There was no face, no features--even its limbs could barely be called that. When it shuddered, all the arms poking from their shallow graves shuddered with it. They were connected. Will could see tendrils reaching out of the earth, clinging to the legs and back of the monster, same as the ones that stretched out of him.

The monster reached for him. Will dodged, his feet sluggish, but he managed to evade. Anger and betrayal seared his nerve endings, rushing into him via his ghastly host. Dead hands pawed at his ankles and he ran, but his enemy was huge, and there was nowhere to go when they were already connected. Will told himself to stop fighting, to go back in the grave. He could be part of something so wide and so great, sharing the lives of dozens of people. It didn't matter that they were already dead. He was dead, too. That was when he saw it.

Another creature was seated at the far end of the graveyard. It had the same rotten stench as the grunting beast he had spied briefly in the woods outside the Shrike's Nest. Its head was that of a stag, and the sight of something familiar filled him with relief where it had once filled him with dread. The antlers were long and jagged, but free of the filth that seemed to coat everything else in his nightmares. Its fur was speckled with raven feathers and its eyes were pure black. But it was not the stag Will was accustomed to. The animal's great head was posted on a human chest, with bleached, dead skin drawn across wide ribs. Its long, sickly arms stretched in welcome tipped with five-fingered hands and yellow fingernails. It had no proper abdomen, only a spine joining rib cage to pelvis, as if its organs had been expertly removed. Will could see its diaphragm flex in the empty space.

It beckoned to him, and in panic and confusion, Will heeded it. He ran through the terrible field, stumbling and panting as he went. Fingernails raked his shins and over and over the earth-beast screamed inside his skull, demanding that he return. But he ran, desperate, until he was close enough to see that the stag was pointing out a grave to him.

The grave was covered in more mushrooms, and Will fell on top of it. He tore into the earth, as wild as anything his imagination had thrown at him so far, until his fingers were digging into rotten flesh. One last swipe of the dirt revealed the grave's owner: Eldon Stammets.

"I told you so," said Stammets, his face a yellow, bloated mass, stalks and shoots peppering his exposed cranium. He grinned up at Will madly. "Don't you see how beautiful it is?"

Will wrapped his fingers around the stalks and pulled. Some gave way immediately, while others held stubbornly on, stretching like gooey tendons. Stammets screamed and fought back, but Will _pulled_ , delirious and shaking. He ripped off the fungal appendages that had cropped out all over Stammets' body, uncaring as the huge beast behind him began to crumble apart.

"They're dead!" Will screamed as the corpses twisted beneath the soil, giving the valley a look of roiling, dark waves. "You don't deserve to be with them. You killed them!"

Will yanked the last stalk free, and Stammets howled in agony as the remaining mushrooms withered all around him. The flesh melted from the grasping hands, and the unearthly beast dissolved in a wave of putrid sick. Still Will kept at his prey, pulling chunks from Stammet's decomposing body until nothing recognizably human was left.

The stag touched his back. Will collapsed against its cold chest, choking on each gasping breath. Everything was growing dark around him, and he felt only a faint twinge when the stag's long fingers pulled the stalk out of his brain. His strength left him. He could only murmur weakly as the stag hefted him in its arms and carried him out of the valley and up the hill. A rush of autumn air helped clear the stench of blood from his crusted nostrils and he thought maybe, just maybe, he would be able to sleep.

The stag laid him gently into the hole in the old oak tree, and he did just that.


	3. Chapter 3

"Will." Someone was touching his face. " _Will_."

Strong hands probed to the back of Will's skull, and he jerked, feeling the slight tug against his hair ripple down into his brain as if he were still in the garden. Coughing and gagging, he shoved the intruding fingers away and tried to retreat.

"Will, stop--it's me," said a familiar voice, cutting through the haze of soil and mist. "Calm down. You're all right."

Will opened his eyes and winced at the morning light streaming through his kitchen windows. It reflected harshly off the tiles his cold cheek was pressed to. After several moments of confusion he realized that he was lying curled up under his kitchen table, Hannibal crouching next to him with a look of concern etched in his already finely etched face.

Will took a slow, experimental breath. His airways were clear. "Dr. Lecter...?"

Hannibal urged him out from under the table. "Will," he said as he prodded Will into a chair at the table. "What on earth were you doing under there?"

Will blinked wearily around him. His kitchen was back to being a proper kitchen, complete with the stale, cold coffee he had been drinking with Alana still in its mug on the table. He could hear dogs on the stairs and wind whispered through the shingles. "How did you get in here?" he asked, staying very still as if he might frighten the life out of the house again if he moved too much.

"Your door was unlocked." It wasn't until Hannibal draped his overcoat over Will's shoulders that he realized he was shivering with cold. "I called last night, but we were disconnected. When I couldn't get in touch with you this morning, either, I became concerned." He took a seat next to Will. "Are you all right?"

Will drew the coat more tightly around him. His eyes were drawn continuously to the light peering in through the windows. "Not really," he said honestly. He felt behind his head for mushrooms but found only sweaty curls.

"More nightmares?" Hannibal supposed.

"Yes." But then Will frowned. When he rubbed his hands together, he could feel dirt scraping between his palms. "No. No, it wasn't a dream. I killed Eldon Stammets."

Hannibal frowned at him. "The Farmer?"

"I went back into the hole," Will explained, even though it wasn't really an explanation at all. "There was another monster, and I..." He started when he remembered. "Gretchen--Gretchen Speck, she was there. I tried to help her, but..."

Will jumped to his feet, Hannibal's coat falling, forgotten, to the floor as he marched back into the living room. One of the dogs was pushing his phone around the floor with its nose, and he gave it a scratch behind the ears to distract it from a possible new toy. He began to dial.

Hannibal's hand closed around his, and he was too startled to keep Hannibal from taking the phone. "Who are you calling?" Hannibal asked.

"I have to talk to Jack." Will eyed the phone in Hannibal's grip and was tempted to rip it from him, but his better sense, for once, won out. "He'll have Gretchen's number. I need to know she's all right."

Hannibal watched him patiently, like a teacher waiting for Will to come to the correct answer. "You're going to tell Jack that you're worried about her because of a dream you had?"

"No, it's not--" Will rubbed his face with both hands. "It wasn't a dream. He connected us--I felt her, I saw her, and she--" Hannibal was still staring at him, and it made him grimace. "I know how it sounds. But after what happened to Abigail--"

"It was a blow to all of us," Hannibal interrupted. He tucked the phone into his pocket and took Will's shoulder. "But her life was not in your hands, Will. Just because you saved a life once does not make you eternally responsible. Not for Abigail, not for Ms. Speck, not for any of the others."

"I know." The pressure of Hannibal's warm palm seemed to draw the strength out of Will, and he let himself relax. "I know--I'm sorry. You're right. I'm sure she's..."

The phone rang from Hannibal's pocket. Both men stopped, and Will was certain he saw doubt flicker through Hannibal's narrowed eyes. Hannibal retrieved the phone and looked at the number, and his lips pursed. "It's Jack," he said.

Will's heart skipped a beat. He reached for the phone, but Hannibal hung up on the call without answering and tucked it away again. "Whatever it is, it can wait," he said, and without leaving time for protests he steered Will toward the stairs. "You need to shower, and change your clothing. I know you were wearing this same shirt yesterday."

Will made a grab for Hannibal's pocket, but was deterred by five hard fingers around his wrist. "It can wait," Hannibal said again. "What did you even do yesterday, Will?"

"Nothing." Will relented, allowing Hannibal to lead him upstairs. "I didn't do anything."

They came to the master bedroom. Will tensed, waiting for Hannibal to look inside first; when no sound of alarm came from him, he felt bold enough to enter. The wall was smooth and blank and undisturbed.

"Maybe it was a dream after all," Will murmured, but he knew it wasn't. His phone already told him it wasn't.

Hannibal opened the bathroom door and waved Will through, but as soon as he felt the cold tile beneath his feet, a sensation of panic prickled under his skin. "Wait," he said, turning back. "You're not leaving, are you?"

Hannibal regarded him with a raised eyebrow. "Do you need my help with this part?"

In any other circumstance, Will might have blushed. "No, I just..." Will hesitated. Hannibal had heard all manner of strange confessions from him in their short acquaintance and barely ever batted an eye, but he had the feeling that _the house dies when you leave_ would be tough for even him to swallow. So he shook his head and backed further into the bathroom. "Just please, don't...leave. I don't want to be alone right now."

Hannibal must have read more into the comment than he had meant, because he came forward and touched Will's shoulder again. "I'm not leaving," he said seriously. "I'm going to put out some clothes for you, and then I'll be just downstairs." He smiled encouragingly. "You're all right, Will. You'll feel much better once you've washed up, I'm sure."

"Yeah." Even without the blood and mud he felt _should_ have been caked to his pores, Will still felt heavy beneath several layers of nervous sweat. "I'm sorry about this. I'm all right, but I--"

"You don't have to explain." Hannibal gave his shoulder a squeeze and then stepped back. "In you go."

Will smiled despite himself, and once Hannibal had closed the door, he stripped out of his clothes.

The hot water felt as good as Hannibal had promised. Will stood under the shower head and breathed slowly, in and out, letting the steam swirl in his lungs. He scrubbed until his skin felt raw and shampooed his hair twice just to feel his fingers through his hair, scratching against his unblemished skull. He was whole and human and he felt like a fool for having ever doubted.

He planned what he would say to Hannibal once he got out of the shower: that it was a dream after all; that his subconscious was eager for control; that he hadn't slept or eaten and was exhausted. As he stood contemplating, building himself up for whatever new case Jack had to offer him, he felt something hot and gooey slap against the top of his left foot.

Will froze. He shook his head and told himself--promised himself--that it was just the shampoo. It was a chunk of soap. A misplaced dog toy. It was nothing at all. But it was still there, standing out against the heat of the shower, clinging to the small hairs standing straight up from his skin. With a deep breath to squash his irrational dread, he opened his eyes.

It was a split and oozing eyeball.

Will stared back at it, his breath held. _It's not real_ he promised himself, but then the mangled flesh surrounding the dark iris pinched in a blink, and with a shout Will kicked it away. It slapped against the tile and then rolled toward the drain but wouldn't fit through, clogging the water flow. As the tub began to fill, far more rapidly than the spray should have allowed, the water turned murky and then thick, rotting red.

Will heard a wet, tearing sound coming from the bedroom, and his senses fled as he tumbled out of the bleeding tub. He threw the door open. "Dr. Lecter?"

Hannibal wasn't in the bedroom, nor was there clothing laid out as promised. There was only the hole gaping at him from over the bed, its perimeter wider and rougher than ever. There was blood along its maw as if it had recently fed.

"Dr. Lecter!" Will ran to the hole and passed his hand over it, feeling a breath of outside air. He might have crawled right in if not for a sound from somewhere outside. His bloody feet slipped on the hardwood floor as he stumbled to the window and looked out.

Jack's car was in the driveway, and Jack himself was beside it, speaking to Hannibal. He had left the fucking house.

Will jerked open his dressers in search of clothes, but all he managed to accomplish was smearing dark, partially-congealed blood across the handles. In desperation he yanked the top sheet off the bed and wrapped it crudely around himself as he ran for the stairs. He wasn't dreaming. When his heel slipped on the top stair and he fell, righting himself awkwardly against the banister, the pain that flared through his bumping knees and ankles was too sharp to be anything but real. The blood in his mouth was real. The blood pumping from his gored and empty eye socket was real. By the time he reached the bottom of the stairs his knees were giving way, and when he collapsed to all fours he felt as if his organs slipped free and sloshed across the rug.

The front door was open. Will's entire body felt ready to turn itself inside out, but the gleam of light from the doorway filled and entreated him, and he ran, the soiled bed sheet left behind as he pushed his muscles to their limit and flung himself onto the porch.

Jack and Hannibal were talking normally in the driveway. Will called out to them, his voice a sticky gurgle, but still they turned. Their eyes widened, and Will ran for them--

\--until his feet struck wet, muddy grass. The earth shifted and roiled beneath him. Will lost his balance and was on his hands and knees again, clinging to rough weeds. At first he thought it was vertigo, but then he realized the ground really was rolling and heaving, up and down, like ocean waves. A cold wind whipped the tall grasses against his bare skin. When he had the strength he sat back on his heels, feeling out his stomach and chest. He wasn't bleeding. His legs still throbbed from a close call on the stairway, but his eyes were in is head and the only taste of blood in his mouth was the memory.

Thunder rippled across the fields. Will raised his head and wasn't sure if he was supposed to be startled to find himself more than fifty yards from his house. From the outside it looked as cold and dead as it had been on the inside, and it pitched and swayed on the wavering hills like a ghost ship on the water. Will moaned as the sight of its rotting wood and shattered windows half hidden in the sudden black of a starless night. "No," he murmured as the image seared itself into his retina. "Don't take even this from me."

A figure was stalking toward him. Despite the constant movement of earth beneath it, its gait did not falter. Will tried to get his legs to hold him, but as the creature approached, and he saw it for what it was, his strength fled again. By the time he was on his feet the stag-thing was upon him, and it stared down on him in cold, unblinking contemplation.

Will swallowed. "What are you?" he asked hoarsely. "What do you want from me?"

The stag reached for him, but at the first touch of its clammy skin the world reversed, and Will found himself on the porch, overlooking the grassy ocean and its swaying, gray stalks. The stag was still out in the field, its silhouette twisted but unmistakable against the angry horizon. Though it was too far for Will to make out its face, he knew the creature was staring directly at him.

And then he was in the house again, but it was the living house, with light and color and dogs. Hannibal was urging him onto the sofa and Jack was covering him with the sheet he had left at the bottom of the stairs.

"Why the hell are you running around naked?" Jack asked, his tone struggling to make light of his concern. "And soaking wet?"

Hannibal made no such attempts. "Will, did something happen upstairs?"

Will stared blearily from one to the next and couldn't answer either. With slow, concentrated effort, he forced his lips and tongue into function. "You left," he said.

Jack frowned between them. "What does that mean?"

Hannibal let out a quiet sigh through his nose as he sank onto the cushion next to Will. "I was just in the driveway," he said patiently. "With Jack."

"You left the house," Will accused. "I asked you not to."

Hannibal's brow furrowed, and beneath his measuring eyes, Will's mind cleared and he realized just how childish and unstable he sounded. "I'm sorry," said Hannibal, even as Will wished he could take everything back. "I didn't realize. But was it really that important that you had to run straight out of the shower?"

"I..." Will looked to Jack and had no idea how to explain himself. Hannibal never batted an eye. Jack did. "No, I'm, I'm fine. I'm sorry." Will rubbed his face. "I don't know what I was thinking."

Jack continued to stare at him, quiet and obviously worried. Hannibal looked like he was silently warning him not to say anything, but he did anyway. "Do you know why I'm here, Will?"

Will's stomach dropped, a sensation which in itself nauseated him. He licked his lips. "Eldon Stammets is dead."

Jack's eye twitched. "What did Dr. Lecter tell you?"

"I didn't know anything until you told me just now, Jack," said Hannibal.

"He didn't tell me anything," Will confirmed. "I just knew." He twisted his hands in the wet sheet and felt stalks pulling free beneath his fingers. "What happened?"

Jack watched him a moment longer, as if waiting for something, and finally released a sigh. He sat down on the sofa opposite them. "He's been under suicide watch since he was admitted," he said. "Last night he curled up in a corner of his cell, and when the guards checked on him, he was unresponsive. They took him to the infirmary but it was too late. He was totally brain-dead. His bodily functions shut down one by one. They won't know what caused it until the autopsy."

"He's..." Will swallowed hard. "He's really dead?"

"Yes." Jack leaned forward against his knees. "How did you know?"

"I..." Will felt Hannibal's hand snake around his wrist, and its steady pressure solidified the answer inside him. "I didn't," he said quietly. "I just guessed, because all I think about is death now. And after what happened to Abigail, I don't think that's going to change anytime soon."

Jack sagged, almost unperceptively, into his shoulders. "I'm sorry, Will. I truly am."

Will nodded. He didn't know what else to say, and was grateful when Hannibal suggested he finally get dressed--even more grateful when Hannibal came with him to make sure. He wasn't about to go back into the bedroom alone.

The hole was gone when they got there, and so were all traces of blood. A pile of clothes was on the floor, having been tossed from the bed when Will stripped it of its sheets. Hannibal faced the door respectfully while Will toweled off and got dressed, and only once he was finished did he ask, "What really happened up here, Will?"

Will buttoned his shirt to the neck and pulled a sweater over it. He was warm and clean but he knew better than to think it made any damn difference. "The water in the shower turned to blood," he said. "That's how I knew you left the house."

Hannibal faced him, his expression carefully even. "Whose blood?"

"Mine, maybe. I don't know." Will shook his head and rubbed his eyes and, remembering Jack still in the living room, he lowered his voice. "Something happens to me when I'm alone," he said. "The house...changes. Everything is just gone, and..." He glanced unwittingly to the wall above his bed.

Hannibal looked, too. "The hole?"

"I was right, wasn't I?" Will moved closer and lowered his voice further, until it was barely more than a hiss. "I dreamt that I...that I _unplugged_ Stammets from his garden, and he goes into a coma and dies? He died just how I killed him--same with Abigail."

"Will," Hannibal said gently.

"Don't say it's just a coincidence, I _know_ it's not a coincidence!" Will held up his hands as if Hannibal would be able to see the bloodstains he could still feel between his knuckles. "Something is happening to me, and it's real," he insisted. "The monsters I killed were really people, and they're _dead_. And...oh." Will stiffened. "Oh no."

He shoved past Hannibal and bounded down the stairs. Jack was pacing the living room, on the phone. "Hold on," he said as soon as he saw Will rushing toward him. "What is it?"

"Gretchen Speck," Will said as Hannibal trailed after him. "Is she all right?"

"I haven't heard anything," said Jack.

"Then _check_." When Jack just stared at him, he tried again. "Please, will you get her number and find out? I need to know she's all right."

Jack held his phone back up. "I'm sorry; I have to call you back. No, everything's fine." He hung up and redialed. "Beverly. I need you to look up a number for me."

Will backed off a few steps, but he didn't calm down. Even when Hannibal suggested they take a seat in the kitchen he remained stubbornly within earshot of the phone, until Jack had the number and a soft, female voice answered on the other end. He then darted forward, jerking the phone out of Jack's hand and bringing it to his ear. "Gretchen Speck?"

"Yes?" she replied. "Who is this?"

Will closed his eyes as a wave of relief threatened him with tears. "This is Agent Will Graham," he said, moving away from his comrades even though he had no hope of real privacy. He wouldn't be able to ask her everything he wanted with Jack in the room. "Do you remember me?"

"Mr. Graham? I'm sorry, _Agent_ Graham. Yes, of course." She sounded a bit sleepy, but otherwise perfectly healthy. "Of course I remember you."

Will smiled shakily. "I'm sorry to bother you. I just wanted to know how you're doing. I'm sorry if this is strange."

"No, it's...I'm fine." She sounded close to tears herself. "Thank you for calling. I'm doing just fine. Thank you."

"Good. That's great." Will glanced at Jack and Hannibal, both watching him intently, and added, "Actually, there's another reason I called. I wanted you to hear it from me and not the news."

Silence. He felt her muscles winding. "Oh?"

"I know this going to be hard to hear, but you ought to know," he continued. "Eldon Stammets is dead."

Jack made a face at him and looked like he might make a grab for the phone, but Will ducked quickly out of range. "I only just heard myself, so I don't know the details, but I figured you would want to know right away."

"Oh." Gretchen was quiet for another long moment. "All right."

"I'm sorry," Will said automatically. "Honestly, I know how it feels to hear this. I just thought..." He glanced again to his audience. "...you might sleep better, knowing he's gone."

Gretchen took a deep breath. "Yes, you're right." He could hear her rallying herself, and his own muscles wound around each other while he waited for what he knew was coming. "To be honest with you, Agent Graham, it's funny you mention it. Or maybe not. You were there, after all, weren't you?"

Will froze, his eyes and ears wide as she went on. "Isn't that why you really called?" she said. "I saw you in the garden."

"Yes," Will said breathlessly. "I saw you, too."

But he hadn't merely seen her. They had been connected, just like Stammets had said. As they listened to each other's silence they understood that something inexplicable had passed between them. He remembered her life flashing before his eyes, and in the quick hitch of her breath he knew that she remembered his, too. They had been dreaming, and it had been real.

But neither knew what else to say, so with well-wishes and promises to check in on each other soon, they hung up.

"What was all that about?" Jack asked as soon as Will handed his phone back to him.

"She's all right." Will dropped onto the sofa again, stretching his legs out in front of him. "I had to be sure, and she's fine." He laughed, and when Winston hopped onto the cushion next to him, Will welcomed him with a belly rub.

Jack and Hannibal exchanged glances. "Excuse us a moment, Will," said Hannibal, and the two of them moved into the kitchen.

Will didn't try to overhear. The tone of their voices was enough for him to understand: Hannibal was asking Jack to back away, Jack was concerned and wanted a diagnosis Hannibal couldn't give. It was the same conversation anyone had about him, he assumed. It was the fight he sometimes had with himself, but at the moment there were much more important things to worry about.

The front door was ajar.

Will nudge Winston aside and pushed to his feet. He walked to the door, his nerves on end and fingertips tingling as he took hold of the doorknob and gently pulled. The hinge gave a tiny squeal of complaint but the door did move, and Will held his bottom lip between his teeth as it opened wide.

Outside, it was night. The wind tore at the dancing weeds and the hills swayed up and down, up and down, in the storm. The clouds were thick and black and red. He could hear rain slapping against the roof and he knew what he must have looked like, a small black smudge in the lighted doorway of a ghost ship on the ocean. Rocking, creaking. Alone on the water.

Alone except for a figure in the distance, its antlers stretching wide, its midsection hollowed of gore. In the black and infinite sea, it stood as an unmoving sentinel, watching him. He could smell its breath on the wind.

Hannibal emerged from the kitchen and saw Will at the door. "Where are you going?" he asked.

Will let his hand fall from the knob. "I'm not going anywhere."


	4. Chapter 4

As Jack was leaving, Alana arrived. They shared a conversation on the porch very much like the one Jack had just shared with Hannibal. Will pretended not to listen as he fed the dogs. Hannibal stood in the doorway, his broad shoulders keeping the life from running out of the house.

As Jack pulled away, Will smiled grimly to himself. "Feels like fifth grade," he said. "Sitting outside the principal's office."

Alana smiled back, and when he wilted a little, unable to keep up the pretense of good humor, she embraced him. The house had a bit more color in it than usual, then. "I'm not your mother, Will," she said.

"Thank God." Will burrowed selfishly into her, her hair soft against his nose. "Or this would be awkward."

Hannibal closed the door, and the click of the latch made Will flinch. Alana felt it. She gently eased him back. "So," she said. "Nightmares."

"You'd think I would be an expert by now," said Will, retaking his seat on the sofa. Alana sat down next to him and Hannibal across. "But it's like I told Hannibal--they're not just dreams. If it was just Abigail I'd write that off, but Stammets? I haven't even thought about that case for weeks. It's too strange that I would have a dream about killing him _as he's dying_." He glanced between them. "Isn't it?"

"Are you certain that's what happened?" asked Hannibal.

"What?"

"That you dreamed it before it happened. Could it not be that once you learned of his death, you created a memory of the dream retroactively?"

Will stared at him blankly. "You were with me when I heard," he said. "I told you about the dream even before Jack called."

Alana took her phone out and tapped with her thumb a few times before showing it to him. She had called up an article on TattleCrime announcing Stammets' death, complete with a cell phone's snapshot of his toe tag. "It looks like Ms. Lounds has more friends on the inside than we thought," said Alana as Will skimmed over the text. "This was posted before even Jack was notified."

"This is the first I've seen of it," said Will.

"Is it?" Hannibal cocked his head to the side. "You're certain?"

"Of course I am--I don't go to this site." Will handed the phone back, his skin crawling; not only was it a disgusting accusation, the implication hurt more than he liked to admit. "You think I made up this dream story just to make it look like I can tell the future?"

"No one's saying that," said Alana.

"Yes you are--yes you did." Will leaned forward against his knees. "I'm not like that. You know I wouldn't--"

"No one is saying it was consciously done," said Hannibal. "But think about the state you're in, Will. The stress you're under."

Will rubbed his eyes. He tried to listen, to let the doubt crawl up under his skin and fester, but then he thought about hot, gooey flesh smacking against the top of his foot, and he knew better. He shook his head. "No. No, that's not what happened."

"Then it's a coincidence." Alana took his hand and squeezed. "I know you feel guilty about Abigail. We all do. And Stammets passing away is some terrible timing, but there's no reason for you to feel guilty about him, too."

Will shook his head again. "I don't feel guilty about killing him," he muttered. "He was already a monster." There was only a tiny spark of regret in him, and it wasn't for a beast parading as a man; it was that he had destroyed the garden, and the horrifying, gratifying connection it had offered him. He remembered the taste of a dozen lives in his brain and he was certain he always would.

Alana shot a glance at Hannibal, who sighed. "All right, Will," he said. "If it's not in your mind and it's not a coincidence, what is it?"

"It's..." Will hesitated. He knew what they would think, what Hannibal already thought, but he couldn't bear to hold it in. "I don't know," he admitted. "I can't explain it. But it's not just a dream and it's not a hallucination. _Something_ is toying with me."

"What kind of something?" asked Alana.

"Something...supernatural." Will hated to say it--hated himself for saying it--and feeling Alana's hand twitch against his, he knew she understood how out of character it was for him to even entertain the idea. "It won't let me leave the house."

"You did this morning," said Hannibal.

"I _tried_ to," Will corrected him. "When Jack came, I tried to leave, but as soon as I set foot on the grass it put me back in the house."

Hannibal didn't look convinced, so Will nudged the dogs away from his feet and stood. "I'll show you," he said as he strode to the door. His hand shook around the knob. He didn't know what would be worse--if it turned, or if it didn't. Hannibal and Alana were behind him and he took in a deep breath. He twisted.

The door wouldn't open.

Will wasn't sure what to make of the perverse sense of relief that coursed through him. He pulled at the knob, lock and unlocked the door, tried again: nothing. It was just as sealed as ever. With a curious frown Alana tried next, and Will's elation turned to horror at the thought that he had trapped them all in his personal hell. She wasn't able to open it, either, but then Hannibal reached between them, and the latch disengaged as if there had never been a problem at all.

Will watched Hannibal very closely to see if there was some trick he had employed, even waited for Hannibal to say some manner of, _you just have to jiggle it_ , but he offered no explanation or teasing. He only pulled the door open wide and looked to them with raised eyebrows.

"Why could only you open it?" asked Alana, her brow furrowed.

"I think we should all leave this house for a while," said Hannibal, and he nudged Will's shoes toward him with his toes.

Will put the shoes on and then his coat. He stood on the threshold overlooking the dead, winter fields and expected a stag on the horizon, a splash of violent blood across the sky. Everything looked normal. When Hannibal took his hand it felt even more normal, and he filled his lungs with the crisp morning air as they stepped out into the driveway together. Gravel crunched under his feet.

"There's a grocer down the road, isn't there?" said Hannibal. "I think I'd like to cook us all some breakfast, but heaven knows there's nothing edible in the house at the moment."

Will smiled and felt on the edge of tears. He swallowed them back. "All right."

Hannibal drove them to the small grocery store at the edge of town. Will sat in the passenger seat, watching the scenery blur past. He was out of the house. It didn't seem real. He continued to wait for the stag, for monsters and Hellscapes, but there was only a dull hum at the back of his mind. The further they got from his little boat on the water, the more persistent it became, until he felt as if his entire body was vibrating at a low frequency. But at least he was out.

It was still fairly early, and a weekday, meaning only a small spattering of cars in the parking lot. Will got out of the car and tried not to look at the stretch of level grass and distant forests as he followed Hannibal inside. Alana stayed close beside him, and they watched with amusement as Hannibal perused the produce section with extreme prejudice.

"I'm sorry about this," said Will, tapping absently at an overripe cantaloupe. "I know you have more important things to be doing than babysitting me."

"You're my friend," Alana replied, and it both hurt and healed him. "Knowing you're all right is important to me. It's not babysitting."

Hannibal was at the butcher's counter. Will told himself to look away several times before he was able to. His skin was still vibrating. "Alana." He knew what she would say but he couldn't help himself. "There was something else in my dream. Something other than Abigail, or the monster she turned into. Something I saw when I was awake."

Alana's expression sobered into something very professional, which might have been reassuring if he himself hadn't used it on people he didn't believe. "What was it?"

"A creature." Talking about it made his small hairs stand on end, and a restless, gnawing sensation gripped his stomach. "Something familiar. It had the head and legs of a stag, but the body of a human. It looked like it was missing its internal organs."

"You saw it while you were awake?"

"When I tried to leave the house. The first time." Will rubbed his arms to fight off a sudden chill. "I know it probably--it _wasn't_ real, but at the time, I felt like...it was the one doing this to me."

Alana pursed her lips. "You know what I'm going to say."

"Yeah." Will smiled bitterly and pretended not to notice the lights going out overhead. He felt thin. "It's not uncommon for someone who's unstable to project onto an imagined subject. It's my subconscious' way of pushing the blame away from myself, and..." He glanced over his shoulder and frowned. "Where's Hannibal?"

Alana leaned around him to look. "It's not a big store. He couldn't have gone far."

Will started off in what seemed to be the most obvious direction Hannibal could have gone in. With every step his feet felt lighter, as if they were rising off the floor, and a cold breeze from the butcher's coolers seemed to flow right through him. Everything was growing hazy. He couldn't see Hannibal, or anyone else, for that matter.

Alana touched his arm. He could barely feel it. "Will," she said. "What's wrong?"

Will shook his head. He couldn't explain, so he took her hand and kept walking, scanning the isles. "He's gone," he said, and he finally passed down the frozen food isle, trying not to look at the waving, distorted reflections in the glass cases. None of them were him. "Something's wrong. He was--"

He reached the checkout area and stopped. There was still no Hannibal, but he spotted the missing shoppers: black, ill-defined masses of thick shadow were crowding together against the glass storefront. They were shuddering, huddling, cold and eyeless and afraid. As Will stared at them a few turned to stare back, and their hollow sockets bore into him. He knew that if he tried to look at himself then, he would have looked just like them.

Alana leaned into his shoulder. "Tell me what you're seeing," she said quietly.

Will looked past the ghosts, past the windows and into what should have been the parking lot. Cars and concrete had been replaced with a rolling field of dead grass, and far in the distance, he could see a single figure standing in wait.

Will swallowed hard. He traced the shape of the antlers with his eyes and understood. "I'm not really here," he said. He looked around at the grocery store slowly dissolving into fog around him. "I never left the house."

He was out in the field. The stag stood next to him, breath snorting through its flared nostrils in visible puffs of air. Together they watched the cloudy storefront windows, and the massive black shadow twisting and writing within. At first Will thought it was the ghostly shoppers, shuffling together, their voices mixing into an unearthly groan, but slowly it came to him that he was wrong: it was only one creature. One huge, undulating mass of rot was traveling down the row of cash registers, its voice fractured and grotesque. As Will continued to stare he felt as if he was being sucked closer, until the shapeless dark widened, filling his vision. It was the only thing he could see up until he blinked, and he found himself staring at the gaping hole in his bedroom wall.

Its jagged maw was still bloody. Will took in a slow breath. "I'm not going back in," he said. "I won't go in."

He sat there on the edge of his bed, cross-legged, glaring defiantly into the hole, until Hannibal and Alana found him.

"Will?" Alana hurried into the room and put her hand on his shoulder. Her fingers were almost unbearably hot against his body. "Will, you're freezing. Why did you leave the store without us? How did you even get back here?"

Will licked his lips. "I didn't," he said. "I've been here the whole time."

"What are you talking about?"

"I never left." Will blinked, and the hole was gone. He couldn't remember if it had still been there when Alana entered. He looked to doorway, where Hannibal was watching them with steady, cautious attention. "I told you: the house won't let me leave."

Hannibal and Alana exchanged looks. "The kitchen is inside the house," said Hannibal. "At least you can still help me prepare breakfast."

Will didn't help them prepare breakfast. He stayed in the living room, surrounded by his dogs, trimming their nails. They were inordinately agreeable to the attention, and it helped him focus. He was still close enough, however, that he could hear Hannibal and Alana speaking in hushed tones as they moved about in the kitchen. It was almost as if the house was echoing their voices back to him intentionally.

"Like I said, he was right next to me one minute, and then the next, he was gone." Alana was cutting a melon. "I don't understand how I didn't see him leave. The store was mostly empty."

Hannibal was heating oil in a pan. It sizzled and crackled. "I'm almost afraid to ask what you're suggesting."

"Maybe it's not really a coincidence after all," said Alana. "When Freddie Lounds wrote that article a while back, she put Will on the radar of a lot of disturbed people."

"Are you talking about the copycat killer?"

Will looked up. One of the dogs whimpered to get his attention back, and he shushed it.

"We know that whoever he is, he's a fan of TattleCrime, thanks to his latest escapades," she went on. "He knows about Will and Abigail, Will and Stammets--most of the cases Will has been involved with are on there. If someone wanted to get to him the way they got to Jack, going after Abigail would make sense."

Hannibal hummed thoughtfully. "You think this is specifically about 'getting to' Will."

"I don't know. But I know Will didn't kill Abigail and I know he didn't walk back from the grocery store faster than us driving."

Will looked to the windows. Even though the house was alive and colorful again, he could feel the vast and undulating space that lay beyond. No copycat murderer, however clever and seemingly superhuman, had connected him to Gretchen in the garden. No psychopath was that generous.

"There's one other thing," said Alana. "Something Will told me he saw."

Will looked back to the kitchen and saw Alana tapping on her phone. He stood and moved closer, staying on his toes so as to not alert her. "He said he hallucinated it while he was awake," Alana was saying as she called up a page and handed the phone to Hannibal. He wiped his hands on a towel before accepting.

Will peeked around the open doorway just in time to see the light rush out of Hannibal's eyes. Anyone not looking as carefully as him might have missed the subtle tightening of Hannibal's skin that indicated recognition.

"You've seen it," said Will before he could stop himself, and watching Hannibal shake the ghost out of his face only made him that more certain. "Haven't you?"

"Of course I have," said Hannibal, handing the phone back to Alana. He took plates out of the cabinets. "It is a pagan deity, once indicated by the Church as being worshipped by the Knights Templar. More recently adopted by Satanists."

Alana showed Will the picture, and though it wasn't exactly the creature watching him from the field, the similarity was eerie. "It's not a goat," he murmured. "But yes, it looks something like this." He scrolled with his thumb. "The Baphomet..."

Hannibal served the breakfast he had prepared--omelets and bacon to his eye, or else something far fancier that Will could only guess the name of--and waved for them to sit. "It's a common enough symbol," he said, perfecting the meal with fresh fruit and whole milk. "Especially among the occult or those desperately wishing to appear authentically Satanic. It does not surprise me that someone in your field would be exposed to its imagery, and internalize it."

Will wasn't interested in eating, but he started with the bacon, hoping it would spur his appetite. He watched Hannibal closely; he knew the recognition he'd spotted in Hannibal's face ran deeper than intellectual curiosity. "You think I'm hallucinating something I saw on an old case but don't remember?" he asked, not without bitterness. "Just like I read that Stammets was dead, and incorporated it retroactively into my nightmare?"

"I think there's a more logical explanation for what you're suffering than some manner of demonic possession," Hannibal said calmly.

"I never used the word 'possession.'"

"Will," Alana interrupted gently. "How did you get back from the store by yourself?"

"I didn't," said Will, more sharply than he should have. He forced himself to drink his milk as if it would calm him down, but he was still frustrated, and he didn't like the way Hannibal was looking at him. "I told you: I never left. I can't explain and don't ask me to prove it again--there's no point in me going out there."

Alana looked ready to say more, but Hannibal beat her to it. "Then there's only one question left," he said. "What do you want us to do?"

Will started to answer and realized he couldn't. He didn't know. He knew what would happen if they left and he didn't know if he could face his bedroom alone again. He would go in the hole. Someone would die. They still wouldn't believe him. But how could he do any differently if he couldn't leave?

"I need to do some research," said Will. "Maybe I can find someone who's experienced something like this. I know a little about the occult as it pertains to psychology and mental illness, but nothing like this. I don't know enough yet to handle it."

Alana licked her lips in preparation of humoring him. "If you're looking for something more professional than Google, I'm sure the libraries at Quantico have research on Satanic practices. I have a few lectures to give this afternoon, but I could come back in the evening with some materials. It's not like Jack will mind."

Will poked at his omelet. "Dr. Lecter's the only one who can open the door."

"I'll be back as well," Hannibal assured. "Though I would feel better if you left with us now. I don't like the idea of you being alone in the house when you're like this."

"I don't have a choice." Remembering that everything would be gone when they left, Will forced himself to continue eating. "I'll be all right."

After breakfast, Will walked them to the door. Watching them put on shoes and coats made him nervous but he knew he couldn't ask them to stay. Breath by breath he braced himself for the inevitable. Alana gave him a hug and told him to call if he needed anything. She stepped onto the porch, but before Hannibal could do the same, Will stopped him.

"You've seen it, too, haven't you," he said, gripping Hannibal's elbow. "Tell me you've seen it."

Hannibal regarded him silently for a long moment and then touched his neck, giving him a warm, almost affectionate squeeze. "We'll be back tonight," he said quietly. "Until then, don't go back in the hole."

Then they left, and Will closed the door. It was just as he knew it would be.

He tried to stay occupied. There was nothing in the house for him to clean or fiddle with, no dogs to tend to, so he resorted to ripping into the sofas. He dismantled one of the armrests with his bare hands and brute force, until he was able to pry loose a nail. With hands bruised and splintered, he used the nail to carve into the surface of the coffee table.

"Abigail Hobbs," he murmured, scarring the wood in deep rivets. "Eldon Stammets," he wrote underneath. "Gretchen Speck," he wrote opposite them. Two were victims, one a killer. Two were monsters, now dead, one only an ornament, now alive. He began writing out the names of the killers he'd apprehended, the ones that had died. He wrote columns of victims and survivors. He wrote out the names of his coworkers, his acquaintances, old suspects, bitter annoyances and rivals. He filled the table with names, some more than once as he divided them into lists and possible categories. In the center he wrote, "copycat."

He told himself he was staying sane with logic and order. He forced himself to consider the possibility that Alana was right, and that someone human and tangible was targeting him. Maybe the nightmare visions were nothing more than that, and he was falling into a madman's clever psychological trap. But it didn't explain Gretchen.

"I saw you," Will whispered to himself as he wore his nail smooth carving antlers into the legs of the coffee table. "I saw you there. I _was_ you there."

And all the while, something heavy and wet paced circles in his bedroom, creaking the floorboards and poisoning the air with a foul stench. Until the phone rang.

Will followed the chime into the kitchen, not that he could remember leaving his phone there. He left it on the table as he accepted the call, his worn fingers leaving a smudge of blood on the screen. It didn't surprise him when buzzing static and grinding moans issued from the speaker, even if it still shot a chill up his spine. What took his breath completely away, however, was the voice underneath it: a child's voice, whispering.

Will leaned closer. He knew better but he put his ear to the device, and beyond the inhuman utterances he could just barely make out the child's strained pleas.

" _I'm sorry, Mommy..._ "

Will squeezed his eyes shut. "It's a trick," he said. "It's not real."

 _"Mommy please, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry._ "

Will pressed the screen to hang up, but the voice didn't stop. When he walked back to the living room it even seemed to follow him, filtering through the house as if echoing out of the walls. Will went back to the sofa for a fresh nail, and once he had one he began scratching his list of names into the bottom of the coffee table. "I don't trust you," he said, mostly under his breath, as his carving grew harsher and more erratic. "You're just trying to get me back in the hole."

_"Mommy, don't! I'm sorry!"_

Will clenched his jaw until it ached, his arm moving in tight circles. A roar of white noise made his eardrums throb and his fingers gnarled around the nail. "It's not me," he mumbled. "That's not me, that's not anyone, it's not even real--"

" _Please, stop. Please stop, I'm sorry, please, I'll do it this time, I will--"_

The house went quiet so abruptly that Will flinched. For several minutes he remained utterly motionless, waiting for a burst of...something, _anything_ , but the house was dead and silent again. Even the indescribable beast upstairs had stopped pacing. Will tried to go back to writing, but the soft scratch of his nail in the wood was suddenly thunderous to his ears, and he soon abandoned the effort. With a sofa cushion in hand he retreated to a corner of the room and curled up, pretending to sleep.

"I'm not going in," he whispered. Closing his eyes only made the house feel even larger and emptier, so he left them open, letting everything blur into a wash of gray. "Leave me alone. They'll be back soon..."

Time passed, though he had no way of knowing how much. Hours, probably. When the phone rang he jumped, and pins and needles stabbed up and down his weary limbs. "You're wasting your time," he said, glaring at the kitchen. "I'm not answering."

The phone stopped, and a minute later, it jingled with a saved message. Still Will resisted, until the silence began to creep over him. Bit by bit it ate away from him, until his body was moving without him, propelling him back into the kitchen. He called up the message.

"Will, it's Jack," it said, and though the sound quality was rough, his voice was perfectly recognizable. "I don't know how to say this, but the O'Hallorans are dead. I just got the call. This isn't like the others; this is wrongful death, all five of them." Will sagged against the table as Jack went on. "Christopher wasn't even with his family but they all died the same way at the same time. I've got Zeller looking into C.J. Lincoln. The bodies will be in by morning and I want you in to take a look, if you're up to it. I'll--"

The message cut off. Will staggered backwards, sweat on his face as turned in circles, remembering the earlier call. He had sat in his husk of a house and listened to a young boy die. And he had done nothing.

Before he knew it, he was upstairs. "Did you kill them because of me?" he raved at the hole, pacing back and forth in front of its crimson drywall teeth. "Are you punishing me for trying to leave? For not playing your stupid game? What the hell are you--what the hell do you want from me?"

Will felt a breeze against his face. It was cold and tasted of mold. He couldn't take it anymore; with a growl of frustration he jumped onto the bed and climbed into the hole just as tires crunched the gravel outside.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As hard as I looked, I couldn't find a name for the killer in ep 4, so I made one up.

Will didn't have to crawl for as long as before, and when he came out the other side, it was into a house.

He thought at first that he had passed through back into his own bedroom, as he fell from the hole into the wall and onto a mattress. The sheets reeked of sweat, and the air was cold and coppery. But it wasn't his bedroom. Dingy, rotten wallpaper stretched out alongside him, and thin, ripped carpet covered the floor. Across from him stood a handsome wooden vanity host to a broken mirror. A starless night hummed beyond the filthy windows and the whole house creaked on its foundations.

Will climbed off the bed and took a moment to get his bearings. When he took a deep breath a mouthful of dust made him cough, and while he was doubled over he thought he heard something moving in the hall. His efforts to quiet himself only made his throat hurt, and he stumbled into the far corner, just in case something came through the door before he could compose himself.

The door rattled and then was flung open. Will saw a flash of something gray and misshapen, and he clambered up onto a dresser. The creature was only as tall as his hip--a bloated, fleshy mass that looked like a child's corpse pulled from the water. Part of its skull was missing in the back, and from the hollow crater blood and brain matter oozed like chunky molasses.

The child reached for him. The dresser wasn't tall or broad enough to protect Will, so he lashed out with his foot, grimacing as his heel dented the creature's already broken skull. It wailed, long and piercing, as it swiped its clawed hands at Will's ankles. Will's jeans were no match, and no matter how many times Will kicked and thrashed, the child would not relent until his calves were raw and bleeding.

Will gave it one last blow and then jumped off the dresser, instead making a run for the vanity. He gripped the mirror's frame and braced his feet, and when the child screamed toward him he pulled as hard as he could. The rotten wood gave way, and Will jumped back just as the mirror pitched forward onto his assailant.

The child squealed, but it only struggled for a moment before falling still. Dark blood seeped into the carpet.

Will backed into the wall and was finally able to catch his breath. Even when he was sure the thing was dead, he could hear movement in other parts of the house; the child wasn't the only one, and likely wasn't the worst monster the house had to offer. "You killed the O'Hallorans, didn't you?" he muttered as he stripped the sheets off the bed and tore himself a long piece. "It wasn't me this time, it was _you_. Like Stammets would have killed Gretchen if I hadn't saved her." He hissed through his teeth. "It was _you_."

Will slid the largest of the glass shards out from under the mirror and wrapped the torn sheet several times around one edge to make himself a shiv. It wasn't much but it was better than being totally unarmed, he told himself. With his back pressed to the wall he nudged the door open, waiting for something else to burst through. When nothing did, he took in a careful breath and peeked outside.

It was a good sized house. He was on the second story, and he could see a twisted banister on the far end of a hallway lined with more bedrooms. Quick footsteps, like a child's, ran in circles behind one of the closed doors. Will moved slowly. There was a light on downstairs, casting a red glow on the far wall, and he knew that something terrible was lying in wait for him. But when he came to the next bedroom, he paused. He could hear another monster-child inside, squealing as it pranced about. Better to make sure everything inhuman was dead.

Will threw the door open and leapt inside. Another of the gray children was turning in circles in the corner, and Will pounced on it from behind. With one hand gripping the raw edge of its caved-in skull he drove his glass shiv into the child's neck and yanked. His nightmares had acclimated him to throat-cutting a long time ago.

Dark blood gushed from the wound, and Will shoved the child hard into the corner, silencing its meager groans until it was dead. He made quick search of the room, finding only a few rotting books, and moved on.

"Is this what you wanted of me in the first place?" Will muttered under his breath as he moved to the next room. "To kill your monsters for you?" He opened the door, and was taken aback when he found the gray-child inside sitting on the bed, facing the wall. It was whimpering softly, and it didn't move or react as Will came closer. He hesitated, and when he finally turned to leave it in peace, it abruptly leapt at him. The long claws raked down his chest, and he stumbled back, cursing and bleeding until he was able to stab the thing to death.

"Damn it." Will took his sweater off and tied it across his chest. " _Damn it_."

There were no more children on the upper floor, so Will moved the stairwell and stood there for several minutes, watching the orange light flicker on family portraits on the wall. Most were too faded and broken to see anything, but the few that showed faces all held the same red-headed woman he'd watched Beverly shoot next to the O'Halloran's pool shed. Kara Shannon.

"Ms. Shannon?" Will started down the stairs, his glass held in front of him, his eyes scanning. "I know it's you," he called. "Christopher chose his family--his _real_ family. And you killed them for it. Didn't you?"

The lower floor was just as dilapidated as the upper, and though there was a fire in the fireplace, Will could only feel the barest hints of its warmth. Shadows danced raggedly around the living room, and Will traced the longest and darkest to an armchair before the hearth. That was where he found Kara.

"How does a child choose anyone over his mother?" she grumbled as he came closer, staring vacantly into the fire. "What a wretched little boy."

"He wasn't yours, Kara," said Will, eyeing each corner of the room. She wasn't alone--he could feel ghosts vibrating in the walls--but there was nothing tangible in the shadows. "None of them were."

"You don't get it. Of course you don't." She looked up at him. "I bet you were a disappointment to your mother, too."

Will couldn't help but glance away, and in doing so he noticed what looked like a human-shaped mass in the fireplace. It was twitching, but not with any remaining life, and though he wasn't sure how, he knew who it was. "C.J. Lincoln..."

"They were all disappointments, in the end," said Kara. "Why do they all leave me?"

Will turned toward her, and started backward at the sight of her skin flaking off in chunks of black ash. Her viscera beneath was red and oozing, and as her skin and hair fluttered away her blood and muscles seeped into the armchair, saturating and mutating it. She sighed, heavy and pained, as her body melted into the house.

Will came at her, realizing that he might not have another chance with her so vulnerable. Before he could reach, the floor pitched beneath him. He only had just enough presence of mind to keep the glass out from under him as he landed on his chest. Then everything was moving. The house groaned and howled as its walls twisted and the windows shattered. Electrical wiring broke from the floor and ceiling and reached for him like grasping hands. Will managed to fend them off with his shiv as he retreated toward the kitchen, but there the floor tiles were turning upward like pitfall razors, and iron piping swung at him from the walls. The entire house was against him.

Will ran for the hall. The wall on his left bent sharply inward, and instinctively he swung his arm; the glass broke in his hand. He tried to keep going but then the hallway closed completely, and no amount of shoving and kicking would budge it.

Wires snaked around his ankles and pulled, dropping Will onto his stomach and banging his jaw. He pawed at the floor, but the carpet came up in clumps and there was nothing to hold onto. There was nothing he could do but be dragged back into the living room, where Kara was still fused to her chair, waiting for him.

"I can still find better children," she said, the words tumbling out of the lipless maw of her burned and bloody mouth. "You haven't stopped me at all." She lifted one hand off the armrest, stretching the stringy tendons that connected them, and pointed at him as if holding a gun.

" _Bang_ ," she mouthed.

Will twisted to the side, but it wasn't enough. He didn't see anything come from her hand but an explosion went off across his skull, sending pieces of scalp and bone flying into the fire. As Will collapsed onto his back he lost feeling in his left side, and he knew from the blood seeping into his collar that he looked just like the children, his gray matter grotesquely exposed.

Kara climbed out of the chair and leaned over him, trailing flesh streamers behind her. "Where's _your_ mother, Agent Graham?" she said, plucking at his shirt, his hair. He couldn't feel it. "I bet you miss her. Don't you want a mother who loves you?"

Will tried to move. He could still feel his right hand, but it was shaking, and he could barely lift it. He knew he was already dead, but he couldn't bear the thought of leaving Kara behind. She was still hunting, still killing, and not just in nightmares. As he struggled to breathe, he felt out something small and hard in his pocket.

Kara put her finger to his forehead and smiled, but before she could follow through, her attention was drawn by a deep, unearthly groan coming from outside the house. Her already twisted countenance stiffened in fear as she looked to the nearest window, where a broad, dark shape was moving past. There were no details to make out, but its voice cracked and thundered, as if made of dozens of men and women howling in pain. It was huge, and the black through the glass reminded Will of the beast he and the stag had witnessed at the grocery store.

"No," Kara whispered, cowering as the beast circled the house. "No."

Will shoved his hand into his pocket and found the nail he had been using on the coffee table. It was only two inches long but he gripped it tight, and with all the strength he could muster he shoved it into Kara's eye socket. She was slow to realize, and though Will worried that her non-reaction meant he'd done nothing, he refused to give up. He hooked his shaky fingers over the edge of her eye socket and pulled her closer so he could drive the nail deeper into her cranial cavity.

Kara finally registered the attack, and she reared back, shocked and confused. "You're a bad boy," she whimpered as she pawed at the gooey socket, trying to pick the nail out. "How could you?" As she shoved her fingers deeper into her skull the house began to twitch and shudder around them, and the growling beast outside grew louder.

"You're a bad boy!" she shrieked, jamming her index finger in to the knuckle. Her body gave a jerk, and as she collapsed backwards the walls of the house buckled, giving Will a fleeting glance of the hulking, rotting beast in the yard. He felt its breath on his face and sweeping over his leaking brain.

" _Will_."

Feeling rushed into Will's body, bringing with it stinging needles. When a pair of women's hands touched his face he thought it was Kara, and he panicked, shoving them off. He couldn't get his feet beneath him; he tried to move, to push himself up, but he was closed in and he kept slipping.

"Will, stop--calm down. It's _us_."

Will stopped, and he caught his breath before opening his eyes. He was in his bathtub, Alana leaning over him. She helped him out, steadying him when his stinging legs wouldn't hold him. "Oh, Will," she murmured.

Will braced himself against the wall and then reached behind him, feeling out the back of his head, then his chest, then his ankles. He was untouched. There was no trace of blood or wound except for his nail-worn fingers, and when he checked his pockets, the nail itself was missing.

"Did I do it?" he asked, still hazy; the sunset light through the windows flickered, reminding him of Kara's hearth. "Is she dead?"

Alana grimaced. "Come on--let's sit you down somewhere."

They came into the bedroom, where Hannibal was waiting. As Will sat on the edge of the bed, gathering himself, his two friends exchanged searching looks. They seemed to do that a lot lately.

"Will," said Hannibal gently. "Did you go back in?"

Will rubbed his face. "I had to. He was screaming..."

Alana sat down next to him. "Jack said he called you about the O'Hallorans. Did you have another nightmare?"

Gradually, Will's mind cleared. He remembered exactly what had happened before and after passing through the hole. "They're dead," he said. "Kara Shannon killed them."

"Kara Shannon is in a psychiatric hospital," said Hannibal, but Will shook his head.

"That doesn't matter anymore. She was still getting to them somehow, maybe the same way I got to her, I don't know. I don't know how this is happening but it's _real_ ; you have to believe me now!"

Alana took his hand and winced when she noticed his bruised fingers. "Something is happening," she said diplomatically. "The entire O'Halloran family dying together in different places is not a coincidence. Jack said they were shot but they haven't found any shells to run ballistics on."

"They weren't shot," Will muttered. "Not with a gun, anyway."

"Did you kill Kara Shannon?" Hannibal asked.

"I..." Will licked his lips. "I don't know. I don't think so." He winced. "Not all the way."

Hannibal took out his phone and dialed. "What are you doing?" asked Alana. Her hand was tight and clammy around Will's.

"There's only one way to know, isn't there?" Hannibal replied. He held the phone out so they would all be able to hear. It was Jack who answered.

"Dr. Lecter?"

"Hello, Jack," said Hannibal. "I'm here with Will and Dr. Bloom. We'd like for you to check on Kara Shannon."

Jack sighed. "I'm getting tired of this spooky routine, Doctor. Do you or don't you already know what I'm going to say?"

"Please just tell us, Jack," said Alana.

Will held his breath, staring down at Alana's hand around his as Jack said, "She was admitted to the infirmary after suffering a seizure, not even half an hour ago. Currently non-responsive. Should I also tell you about C.J. Lincoln?"

"She burned him in the fireplace," Will whispered. "Traitors deserve fire."

Hannibal watched him closely. "Go ahead, Jack."

"His room at the hospital went up in flames. Firefighters are still there now, trying to save the building. The doctors are thinking it was suicide; maybe he found out about the O'Hallorans somehow. Is Will there?"

Will held out his hand, and though he looked hesitant, Hannibal handed him the phone. "I'm here, Jack," he said wearily.

"Will, I've got six dead in just under four hours. Plus Stammets and Hobbs--tell me what the hell is going on here."

Will squeezed his eyes shut. "They're not suicides," he said. "And they're not accidents. Some...one is targeting my cases. I don't know yet who or why." With only the dark of his eyelids before him, he could feel the empty space behind him and the hole that was waiting for him. "I'm working on it."

"Do you think it's the copycat killer?" asked Jack.

Alana squeezed his hand. "I don't know," Will said. "It's possible."

"If it is, he's not working alone. Seven bodies in four places in four hours."

Will didn't know what to say, and he knew if he stayed on much longer he would end up blurting out the truth. Thankfully, as soon as he faltered, Alana intervened. "Jack, give us some time," she said. "The three of us are going to put our heads together and see if we can come up with answers for you. Let me call you back in a few hours."

"I'd still like Will to come in tomorrow morning and have a look at these bodies from the O'Halloran house," said Jack, sounding impatient.

Will shook his head. "We'll see," said Alana. "I don't think that's the best thing for him right now."

"I know, but..." Jack sighed. "All right. Call if you think of anything."

"Of course." Alana hung up and handed the phone back to Hannibal. "Would you rather talk downstairs?" she asked.

The coffee table was still upside down in the living room, thrown up against a half-mangled sofa, so they talked in the kitchen. Hannibal had brought dinner with him, and it wasn't until Will's stomach gave an eager leap that he realized it was already six in the evening, and he hadn't eaten since their breakfast together. He gulped down pork and potatoes and tried not to think about the taste of blood at the back of his mouth.

"I think I'm starting to understand," said Will. "The killers I've been apprehending aren't just people--there's something monstrous in each of them. I don't know if what they've done has made them that way, or if it's the other way around, but whatever is doing this to me _wants_ me to go after them. Throwing them in prisons and hospitals wasn't enough. They're still hunting and killing."

"But _how_ , Will?" asked Alana. "Clearly something out of the ordinary is happening, but how can you say Shannon did this when she spent the entire time in a secure facility?"

"It's like..." Will rubbed his face and glanced at Hannibal, who was watching with a kind of uneasy patience. "It's like some kind of astral projection," he forced himself to say. "When I pass through the hole, it's as if I'm in a different world. _Their_ world. And what happens there reflects in the real world."

Alana frowned, struggling between professional and personal concern. "Then why go in?"

"I felt like I didn't have a choice," Will admitted. "I tried not to, this time. But I could hear Christopher, begging, and I..." He remembered the thin voice calling out through the phone and tasted bile. "I thought it was a trick--I didn't go in. But if I had..."

"So," said Hannibal abruptly. "If you go through the portal, you are confronted with monsters. They try to kill you and you them. It would be safer and easier for you not to go, but if you do, there's a chance you could save a life. Or avenge one."

Will swallowed hard and met Hannibal's gaze. "Yes."

"It sounds remarkably like your life before all of this." When Will only stared at him, Hannibal elaborated. "Jack has been sending you out against the monsters for weeks. Sometimes you're too late, and sometimes you succeed, with great cost to yourself either way."

"No." Will shook his head and leaned back from the table. "Don't do that."

"You've seen terrible things," Hannibal continued anyway. "You killed a man and took pride in it. Turned your gun on a child. These things would be much easier to accept if there was evil behind it all along."

"I understand what you're saying," said Will, wagging his finger at Hannibal. "And if someone else was telling me this, I might think the same thing. But a metaphor in my subconscious didn't kill those people."

"No. It didn't." Hannibal stared him down hard. "But if I am to accept what you're saying as the truth, I must also accept that you are confessing to murder."

Will shriveled beneath Hannibal's intense eyes. "It's not like that."

Alana looked ready to intervene, but Hannibal kept speaking. "Eldon Stammets was deemed mentally unfit and left to the care of professionals," he said. "The system you stand for had already judged him. But you admit to executing him."

"Their souls are not human," Will insisted. " _They_ are not human. And Stammets--he would have killed again if I hadn't stopped him. Probably Ms. Shannon, too."

"In the field, shooting Garret Jacob Hobbs to save his daughter is justifiable. But you _chose_ to go into the hole, Will. Didn't you?"

Will shook his head vehemently. "You're not listening--"

"What about Abigail?" Alana interrupted. She looked pale. "Are you saying Abigail was as much of a monster as the others?"

"I..." The words formed and died in Will's throat. He looked from one to the other, and then glanced into the living room, where he had carved antlers into the legs of the coffee table. "I don't know," he admitted quietly. "Maybe...she was more like her father than we thought."

Even Hannibal fell quiet. As the three of them sat together in the gradually darkening house, Will let his mind drift back to the bloody cabin in the woods. Abigail had been on the wall with the girls. Abigail had died beneath him, a twisted, carnivorous beast. A monster made of a dozen dead copies. A monster of broken mouths.

Alana reached for his hand, but he withdrew it. It didn't sway her from speaking. "It's true that too many people have died for it to be a coincidence. Or for it to be one person working alone. But what if it is more than one person, working together to target you, and your mind is doing whatever it can to cope?"

Will's brow furrowed. "Psychopaths don't work together like that."

"I don't see what other explanation there could be," she said.

"Other than what I've just told you?" When she opened her mouth to reply, he shook his head. "No, forget it. I don't blame you for not believing me. I know how it sounds."

"You've told me before that you have suffered visions and nightmares since coming to work for Jack Crawford," said Hannibal. "You have allowed fear and guilt to build in your mind, and I worry that now the dam has failed. We can't allow you to wallow in this fantasy of yours, Will. It would be irresponsible of us to indulge you."

Will looked to the windows, where a splash of blood decorated the blackening sky. He could feel the stag waiting for him beyond the grassy dunes. "You think I'm crazy."

"I think we need to get you out of this house, for real this time." Hannibal leaned closer, and the back of his palm pressing to Will's forehead made him wince. "Perhaps even get you to a doctor. You feel warm to me."

Will allowed Hannibal to prod his head gently back and forth, checking his lymph nodes, eyes, and mouth. "I don't feel warm," he muttered. "I feel cold."

When Hannibal withdrew, Alana touched the side of his neck to see for herself. "If you have a fever it might explain the vividness of your dreams."

Will started to protest, but Hannibal talked over him. "I want you to come home with me," he said. "I have a very comfortable guest room you can make use of. This house has become the center of your delusion and I think it wise to separate you from it as soon as possible."

The thought of leaving filled Will with dread. He knew it wouldn't work--even if a part of him escaped, the part that mattered would still be trapped in the house. More people would die. When Hannibal put a hand on his shoulder, it was so heavy and hot that he grimaced, and a strange, almost instinctual sensation of panic came over him.

"Why is it you?" he asked abruptly. "Why is everything different when you're here?"

Hannibal frowned. "What do you mean?"

"You're the only one who can open the door. I was only able to leave because it was with you, and as soon as I lost sight of you, the house took me back." Will glared at him. "Why? Why you?"

"I am your friend," said Hannibal. "And, perhaps more importantly in this case, I am your psychiatrist. You associate me with sanity and stability. It may be that on a subconscious level you feel more secure in my presence."

Will was already shaking his head. "You recognized that monster."

"It's a common enough symbol."

"Will," said Alana, "now you're being paranoid. Hannibal's just trying to help you."

"You more than recognized it," Will insisted. "I saw _fear_ in your eyes. I know you've seen it in more than in books. Why can't you just tell me?"

"Will. Please." Hannibal extended his hand. "Let me take you out of here."

Will's gaze danced between Hannibal's outstretched hand and his eyes. His stomach twisted in knots, his doubt as strong as his certainty. Leaving would change nothing, even if he managed to do to. Or would it? What if they were right and it was all in his mind? None of his injuries had carried into the waking world.

Alana leaned into his ear. "Let's say for just a moment that you're right," she said gently. "What does that mean, Will? What will happen if you stay here? Will you go back into the hole?"

"I'll have to," he whispered. "The house by itself is too much for me..."

"And _then_ what will happen? You'll kill again?" She squeezed his wrist. "I don't want you to have to do that. I know you feel responsible for the victims but you can't save everyone. You're just one man, and at some point they have to take responsibility for themselves, too."

Will swallowed hard and look again to Hannibal's hand, outstretched on the table. She was right; he already knew what would happen. With a deep breath and a few moments more of hesitation, he finally took hold of Hannibal and squeezed.

Hannibal smiled grimly. "I'll take you to the car, if Dr. Bloom wouldn't mind gathering a few things for you."

Hannibal walked him to the front door and opened it. As Will stood on the threshold, overlooking what seemed to be his normal driveway and normal fields beyond, he put one hand in his pocket and remembered the nail again. "Wait."

Hannibal reluctantly let go as Will moved back into the living room and checked the sofa. The first nail he had worn down was still there, but the second, which he had driven into Kara's skull, was missing. He hunted for it in the places he had been and found nothing.

"The nail is gone," he murmured to himself. "I took it with me into the hole."

Hannibal watched him from the door. "I'm sorry?"

"The nail." Will rubbed his still sore fingers. "It came with me. Doesn't that prove it was real?"

"No." Hannibal approached and retook his hand. "It doesn't prove anything. Come along, Will."

He looked to the stairs. "But Alana--"

"She's coming." Hannibal continued to herd him outside. "Come have some fresh air."

They walked down the short steps and into the driveway. The crunch of the gravel beneath Will's shoes echoed up his unsteady legs and put a hum in his chest, just like when they had gone to the grocery store. "It's not going to work," he said. He curled and uncurled his fingers, watching them blur. "I still haven't left the house."

"I know it feels strange, now," said Hannibal. "But it will pass. Take a deep breath and keep telling yourself that."

Will did so, but before he could let the breath out, the front door slammed shut. He jumped, and when he turned back, he realized that Alana was still inside. "Oh, no."

He ran to the door, but it wouldn't open. "Alana?" He pounded with his fist and tried to peer through the window. "Alana, are you all right?"

Hannibal didn't move to assist, instead watching Will with growing impatience. "Will, she's fine."

"No, no, she's--" The house quivered beneath Will's hands, and he could sense a great expanse trapped within, rolling in waves. When he pressed his ear to the door he could hear movement on the hardwood. There was a heavy thud and then, distantly, he heard Alana screaming.

Will yanked and shoved at the door, his heart ablaze as he listened to her voice ringing in terror throughout the house. Finally it grew loud enough that Hannibal heard it, too, and then suddenly he was on the porch with Will, twisting the door open. They charged inside and found Alana in the kitchen, cowering in a corner with the kitchen table turned on end in front of her like a barricade. She was missing a shoe and there were tears on her pale, wide-eyed face. When she saw them, she shuddered. "Will..."

He rushed forward, helping her to her feet, but she had no strength in her knees and soon collapsed into his arms. "I saw it," she choked out between panicked sobs. "I saw it."

"Alana..." Will held her close as he fought back a rush of nausea. "You're all right," he comforted her awkwardly. "It's gone. I've got you."

He looked to Hannibal, who was standing a few feet away, blank confusion on his usually unmovable face. After a few beats he came forward and touched Alana's back. "Let's take her out of here," he murmured, and when Alana wilted, he wasted no time in scooping her up in his arms.

"He was right," she whispered, still half senseless with fright as she clung to Hannibal's neck. "I saw it--the whole house was full of blood...."

As Hannibal tried to calm her, Will strode into the living room. A fire was pulsing under his skin and before he knew what he was doing, he was pulling his gun out of a drawer. He loaded it with a fresh magazine and shuddered with the click of it fitting into place.

"Will?" Hannibal, still carrying Alana, was at the door. "What are you doing?"

"Just go," said Will, his hand twitching around the grip. "Get her out of here."

"I'm not leaving without..." Hannibal trailed off when he saw the gun.

Will scraped his sleeve over his face and turned toward them. "Just go," he said again. "It's not safe for either of you here."

Hannibal gathered himself up. "I'm not leaving without you," he finished. "Put that away."

"If I take it with me into the hole, I'll have it to use against them," Will reasoned. "I have to go back."

When Alana realized what was happening, she urged Hannibal to put her down even though her legs were still unsteady. "Will, please," she said, fresh tears splashing her eyelids. "Come with us. You can't stay here."

"I don't have a choice!" Will headed for the base of the stairs. "Please, just go. It won't let me in if you're still here, and I have to finish this somehow."

Hannibal nudged Alana toward the wall so she could keep her balance and then stepped forward. "No one is leaving you here with a loaded gun."

"Stop," said Will, and when Hannibal didn't, he leveled the gun at him. " _Stop_. You can't help me."

Hannibal kept coming. "You're not going to shoot me, Will," he said calmly. "We both know that."

He reached out, and when his fingertips slithered over the barrel something sick prickled along the back of Will's skull. Sirens blared in his ears and he just knew, _I can't let him take me out of here._ With a sound of frustration Will stepped back and turned the gun on himself.

Alana staggered away from the wall. "Will!"

"Get out," Will ordered, sweat on his face as he dug the muzzle into his temple. He thumbed back the hammer. "Right now."

Hannibal finally stopped. Real fear flittered across his eyes as he stared back at Will, trying to judge his conviction. He must have known that Will was bluffing, but he did retreat several steps, far enough that Alana could latch onto his elbow. "Will, please," he said.

Alana tried to step around him, but he held her back. "We'll leave if you want," she said, "but please, put it down. _Please_ , Will."

"I'm sorry." Will blinked away tears and reached behind him for the banister. "Whatever the house did to you, I'm sorry. But you have to go." He gestured toward them with the gun, very careful to keep his finger off the trigger. "Get out of here!"

Hannibal retreated further, taking Alana with him though he nearly had to pick her up again to do it. She continued to call his name as Hannibal dragged her onto the porch and closed the door behind him.

Will turned and charged up the stairs, into the bedroom where the hole was waiting. It had grown again and nearly occupied the entire wall, and with his gun still in his hand, Will climbed inside. It was nearly a cavern, and instead of crawling he was able to run, his breath hard and fast. He stubbed his hands and feet in the uneven, pitch black space, until soft, gray light filtered through an opening ahead of him. He passed through and into a building.

It was a church. Like everything in his nightmares it was in shambles, the bare wood rotting and split, the stain glass windows clouded and shattered. The wall on his left had caved completely, letting in a low breath from the starless night that lay beyond. Candles around the pulpit provided only traces of illumination, leaving most of the space heavily shadowed. The crucifix on the far wall was crooked and stained.

Will gulped and walked slowly forward. He expected to find bodies in the pews, or else grim mockeries that had once been human bodies, but all he found were their imprints; the pews were covered in a thick layer of dust, but in places it had been smudged off the benches, and footprints marked the floor where each solemn worshipper had sat. It put a chill in Will's bones and he suddenly didn't trust himself with the gun anymore.

"Hello, Mr. Graham," said a voice behind him. "I knew you would find your way to me eventually."


	6. Chapter 6

Will turned, gun raised and finger on the trigger, but the creature leapt over him before he could get it in his sights. It sailed overhead on flapping wings and landed before the alter with a flourish. "Please, save your bullets," it said, raising its seven-fingered hand in surrender. "It's no use trying to kill me; I'm already dead."

Will took his finger off the trigger, but he didn't lower his arm as he stared at the beast. It stood nearly eight feet tall, draped in rags that did little to cover its blistered and bloody figure. Its limbs were long and sickly thin, its face charred black with barely any features to speak of. It was the wings that gave its true identity away: four broad wings of dry flesh stitched together with pale hair, broken and torn in places, but stretched wide in an attempt at grandeur. It was an angel.

Will caught his breath and licked his lips. "You're Elliot Buddish," he said.

"I am." He lowered his arm, and at length, Will did the same. "And you're Will Graham. We met once before, if you remember."

"But you were..." Will's brow furrowed as recalled those moments in the barn. It finally occurred to him. "I wasn't really hallucinating, was I?"

"That depends on your definition of hallucination," said Elliot. "But I was there, and I did speak to you."

Will stepped slowly forward. Elliot was standing very still, without any indication that he meant to attack; even if that hadn't been reassuring, there was something different in the air of the church than the other nightmares he had faced. He hadn't been able to talk so coherently with any of the other monsters and it was worth it to learn as much as he could. "I came here thinking I would have to kill you," he said. "If you're dead but you're still here, does that mean..." He gulped. "Was killing the others not enough? Will they keep on killing?"

"Death is a strange thing in the Otherworld. It matters more, and less. I'm sorry." His wings shuddered. "I'm still figuring it out myself."

"The Otherworld?"

His wings shuddered again. "I have to call it _something_."

"Do you know what's going on?" Will asked as he moved closer, desperation beating down his caution. "You're not like the others. Why am I here--what am I supposed to _do_?"

"If we're _supposed_ to be doing anything, I haven't figured it out yet," Elliot admitted. "But you already know what I _have_ been doing."

Will realized with a start that he did. "Your victims," he murmured, half in shock. "They were all criminals themselves. You killed them because you saw in them what they had done."

"It wasn't about killing them," said Elliot. "I was trying to help them."

Will slumped, bracing himself against a pew for balance. "You were doing exactly what I've been doing: killing monsters."

Elliot tilted his head. "Monsters?"

"Abigail," said Will, though it broke his heart. "Stammets. Shannon. Those monsters _were_ them, or some part of them. And I could see it just like you could see it."

"They look like monsters to you?"

Will started to say that of course they did, but he stopped himself when he realized how still Elliot had grown. His palm began to sweat against the grip of the gun. "Yes."

Elliot stepped closer, and though Will should have retreated, he didn't. "Do _I_ look like a monster to you?" he asked quietly.

He had to fight not to answer right away. As he considered his options, he blinked, and suddenly the choice was made for him. Gone in an instant was the twisted, charred angel, leaving only the Elliot Buddish from his funeral photos: very average and very human in his button down and slacks.

"No," Will whispered. He swallowed. "You don't look like a monster to me."

Elliot smiled like he didn't believe him. "To me, they look almost normal," he said. "But I can see the fire around them. They wear it like a mask, but it's their _face_ that's the mask. It's the fire that's real."

Will licked his lips and had to debate with himself a few times before he could bring himself to ask, "What about me?"

Elliot shook his head. "Does it matter now?"

"I guess not." Will dropped into the front row pew and felt the dust resettle around him. "I just don't understand why this is happening," he murmured. "Why now? Why me--why _us_?"

Elliot regarded him silently for a long moment and then came closer, seating himself next to Will. His slow sigh embodied all the exhaustion Will felt himself. "I've always dreamt a lot about death," he said, staring up at the crooked crucifix. "Ever since I was a kid. But it wasn't until they told me I was dying that I started to _see_ it. It's everywhere, Mr. Graham. All around us, all the time. And it shows you things." His eyes narrowed. "Like the men of fire. I saw what was in them, and I had to get it out. I tried so hard to get it out of them. To make them something else. But I wasn't like you. I couldn't get down deep enough in them to pull it out. Not until I came here."

"I dream about death a lot, too," Will admitted. "But not like this."

Elliot turned to look at him. "Are you dying?" he asked bluntly, and when Will tensed, he added, "I'm not asking to frighten you; I have no idea if you are. But I couldn't _see_ until I was dying."

"No, I'm..." Will shivered within his skin. "I don't think so. I haven't...." He turned his gaze to the stained glass windows around them, and spotted in a dusty patch of faded blue long, twisted antlers. He took in a slow breath. "But I did kill someone."

"You see people," said Elliot. "You feel them; isn't that right, Mr. Graham? And now, in the presence of death, you see and feel death as well." He leaned closer, his shoulder cold and bony against Will's. "In the presence of evil, you see and feel evil."

Fear, deep and instinctual, danced at Will's edges. "Evil," he repeated. "God, how I hate that word."

"Call it whatever you want. It has you, now."

"What else can I do?" Will took Elliot's hand and gripped it tightly. He managed not to wince when he felt the angel's seven bleached and knobby fingers in his own, despite Elliot's human appearance. "You were the last one I caught for Jack. What happens now? Does meeting you like this mean I've reached the end?"

Elliot smiled at him sympathetically. "I really doubt it. I've seen the thing hunting you, and it's not giving up as easily as that."

"Hunting me...." When Will took in a deep breath he could feel the dead and empty space outside the church, and the creature waiting there with its twisted horns and exposed spine. "What does it want?"

"What do _you_ want?" Elliot asked in return. He stood and pulled Will up with him. "You are a hunter of monsters, Mr. Graham. Here in the Otherworld, you have the chance to be even better at it than you were before." He led Will down the aisle, toward the broad wooden entrance doors of the church. "There is even the chance that you could save a life. You are not the only one in the company of evil."

The doors creaked open by themselves, and as they passed through Elliot twisted and stretched, resuming his angelic form. His hand was sweaty, and the heat of it seemed to flow up Will's arm and into his face. He tried not to think about how Elliot must have seen him as they walked together down the worn steps, along a gravel path and up to a crumbling cemetery.

The stag was waiting for them, as Will knew it would be. It was seated cross-legged atop a broad tombstone, breath puffing visibly in the cool air. Will stared at it from the rusty rod-iron gate, his thumb passing back and forth over the hammer of his handgun. He knew that whatever the creature wanted with him, it wasn't a chat.

"Everything changed after Hobbs," he said. "I thought it was that I'd gotten too close, but maybe that's just when _this_ started." He looked to Elliot. "Maybe killing Hobbs triggered something in me. Maybe seeing the evil in him made it so I can see evil everywhere."

"I don't know what else to tell you," said Elliot, his wings shuddering. "This is as far as I can go."

Will glanced to the stag and then back. Elliot's charred face and gruesome physique weren't much of a comfort, but he couldn't help but appreciate the company of someone who understood. Assuming he wasn't just hallucinating. He felt a distant disappointment that Elliot was dead and wouldn't be able to corroborate his story when he woke up. Then he felt guilty for being that selfish.

"Elliot." Will grimaced, unsure of what he was even saying. "Is there anything I can do for you?"

Elliot went very still again, and after several long moments of silence he took a step back. "No," he said. "Maybe sometime soon. But not yet." Another step. "You know where to find me, if you ever need me."

Will nodded. "I'll...I'll come back," he said. "If I can." He smiled grimly. "Thank you for proving I'm not alone."

"Good luck, Mr. Graham," said Elliot, and then he turned, striding back toward the church.

Will took a deep breath and shoved the cemetery gate open. Though the loud creak of the rotting joints gave him goose bumps, he followed the path without falter to where the stag was waiting for him atop its chilling throne. It sat, straight-backed and patient, for Will to join him on the edge of an open grave.

"I'm here," said Will, meeting the creature's black-eyed glare. "If you hurt Alana to get me here, congratulations, it worked. But don't you dare do it again." His hand tightened around the gun. "I'm not afraid of you."

The stag snorted quietly, unimpressed, and tipped its head down. The grave before him had been dug up, reaching down and down into the earth, just as black and inviting as the hole in Will's wall. Will knew what was expected of him, but he hesitated. He watched every breath and twitch of the creature, waiting for its disguise to fall away and reveal its true identity. "If each of these monsters is a metaphor, whose are you?" he asked outright. "Are you Garret Jacob Hobbs? Are you..." Emotion swelled in his chest. "Are you punishing me for killing you? For Abigail?"

The stag didn't reply; it only gestured to the grave with both hands.

There didn't seem to be anything else to do, so Will stepped closer, his toes hanging over the edge. "Isn't there some other way?" he asked. "Monsters or not, they're still people. Killing them can't be the only answer. Especially if killing you is what started this in the first place..."

The stag lost its patience and reached forward, grabbing Will by the front of his shirt. Will tried to fight and even raised the gun, but it was too late; the stag wrenched him off his feet and head-first into the grave. He fell for hours. The hole opened until Will couldn't sense walls on any side, leaving him to plummet through the dark and empty space, alone. He wanted to scream, but he didn't. He closed his eyes until light washed his eyelids red, and he passed from cold, damp nothingness and into the stale air of an old building. The ground rushed up to meet him.

Will didn't feel the impact, but when he opened his eyes he had stopped, and was lying face down on a polished, hardwood floor. The sound of his heavy breath echoed through the gaping hall, but then before he could get his limbs under him, the silence was broken. It started with one pair of clapping hands, then two, and gradually the space filled with an enthusiastic applause. As Will struggled to his knees he realized that he was in a concert hall with a full audience in attendance--rich people in tuxedos and dresses, congratulating each other on their refined sensibilities more so than their performer.

"I guess this is just another kind of Hell," Will muttered, trying to squash an adolescent flash of embarrassment at being the center of their attention.

Someone cleared his throat loudly behind him, and Will turned. A handsome man was seated at the center of the stage, dressed in a three piece suit with a cello braced against his knee. "They're applauding for _me_ ," the man said with smug amusement. "Not you."

Will glanced to the audience, which was still clapping, and then back. "Who are you?"

The man scoffed. "This is _my_ dream," he replied. "Who are _you_?"

Will pushed to his feet and moved closer, relieved to find the gun still in his hand. "This isn't a dream," he said. "Please don't ask me to explain because I can't, but you're in great danger. I need to get you out of here somehow."

"You want me to leave?" The man laughed heartily. "Don't be ridiculous. There're still two movements left."

He brought the bow to the strings and began to play. The tone was rich and deep, beautiful at first, flowing out over the crowd in waves of vibrant sound. Gradually, it became something else. The cello began to groan and murmur, joined by the pained voices of the audience. When Will looked out over the gallery he could almost see the music rippling across the columns of people for the change it enacted on them. Each adoring fan began to twitch and shrivel, their skin clinging to their bones and their hair falling out in pale clumps. Within seconds they had transformed from art-world elite into humming corpses, and as the hall rotted around them Will finally understood.

"It's you," he said, backing away from the musician. "It's you I'm here for."

Before he could decide how to react, a voice rose above the demonic music: a human voice, shrill with panic. He turned and saw a heavy-set man struggling to break free of the many dead hands clinging to his suit coat and hair. Will grimaced, turning his gun on the musician, but he didn't know if one shot would be enough and he couldn't block out the screams behind him. Growling in frustration, he abandoned the musician for the moment and jumped off the stage, heading for the only other human.

The man had been pushed onto his back, and just when Will feared he was too late, another shriek spurred him on. He shot two of the grasping corpses in the head and threw a third back into its seat. "Hey!" he called, grabbing the stranger's bloody, outstretched hands. "Come on--come on!"

"Oh god," the man choked out as he stumbled to his feet. More hands pawed at him and he jumped, clinging to Will's arm as they fought back toward the stage. "Please, help me!"

The musician was still playing, swaying back and forth on his stool and totally engrossed in the music. Will could feel the _thing_ pulsing beneath his surface and, remembering his confrontation with Kara, he didn't want to start a fight with a civilian on his arm. Instead he changed directions, dragging his companion toward an emergency exit at the base of the stage.

The man helped Will push at the exit only to find it securely locked. "What's going on?" he whimpered. "Is this a nightmare?"

"No," said Will. He gave the door one more kick, and when it still refused to budge, he put his back to it to get a look of their options. "No, this isn't a dream, so stay close to me--be careful."

"Okay, okay, I will."

There were exit doors at the back of the theatre, but Will suspected they wouldn't be any easier to open, even if they could dodge all the reaching corpses to get to them. The only other path he could see was the exit on the stage itself that led deeper into the building. "Follow me," he said, his gun held tight and ready as he jumped back onto the stage and pulled the stranger up with him.

They had almost reached the stage exit when the music abruptly stopped. The musician was laughing again, and though Will didn't want to turn back, his companion already had. "Where are you going, Franklyn?" the musician called, plucking at the cello strings. "You're going to miss the finale."

"I..." The man shifted and stammered. "I'm sorry, I--"

"Hey." Will grabbed his elbow and pulled him back. "Whoever you think that is, it's not him," he said, deciding a more lengthy explanation would have to wait. "He's here to hurt you. Come on--we have to go."

He pulled, and thankfully, Franklyn followed. The musician continued to laugh at them while he resumed his playing, to the grotesque delight of his audience. Thankfully, the stage exit was open, allowing Will to lead the way down a corridor and through a door. The interior was just as dilapidated as the theatre had become, but there were no signs of corpses or other creatures. Still, Will hurried them on in hopes of finding another exit. Even a hole might have been welcome.

"So your name is Franklyn?" Will asked as they went.

"Y-Yes, sir. Franklyn Froideveaux." He tried to wipe blood out of his beard from his split lip. "Are you sure I'm not--"

"That man back there." They reached the end of the hall and Will hesitated to try the door. "Do you know him?"

"Well, I...yes, yes, I know him." Franklyn shook his head. "But this can't be real, oh my god. I can't--"

"Franklyn," Will said firmly. He shoved his gun into his belt so he could grab Franklyn's shoulders. "Please, stay with me. Who was that man?"

Franklyn took in a deep breath and seemed to compose himself. "Tobias," he said. "My friend, Tobias Budge. At least, it looked like him--you said it might not be?"

"I don't know for certain," Will admitted, "but whoever that is, he's dangerous. Whatever he says, don't trust him."

"Okay, I--wait." Franklyn gathered himself up and pushed Will's hands off him. "Wait, why should I trust _you_?"

"Because I didn't leave you to get torn apart by those mummies?" retorted Will, but he quickly rethought his strategy. "My name is Will Graham. I'm FBI. I know this is a lot to take in, but this is real and I'm going to try to help you through it. But you have to trust me." He rubbed his face. "Or if nothing else, please believe that if those things out there kill you, _you'll stay dead_. Understand?"

"Yeah..." Franklyn gulped. "I understand."

"Okay." Will turned back to the door. "Let's see where this leads."

He opened the door. He wasn't expecting an easy way out, but was still bitterly disappointed when he was met with a long and darkened hallway. It seemed to stretch on endlessly with no doors on either side, only rotten and peeling wallpaper. Franklyn eyed it doubtfully. Will had his reservations as well, but turning around wasn't an option. With a deep breath he started down the hall.

As soon as they were through the door, it slammed shut behind them. Tobias' deep and grating music echoed up and down the walls as if it were closer than ever, and when Will started to walk forward, a gray and gnarled hand reached impossibly out of the wall to grab at his sleeve. Will yanked himself free only to feel another pawing at his other arm. When Franklyn yelped behind him he knew he was suffering the same, and he picked up his pace. "Come on," he said, reaching behind him without looking back. Franklyn took his hand and they began to run together down what was quickly becoming a gauntlet of dried and grasping limbs. Sharp fingers plucked at their clothes and hair in time with the hellish symphony released from Tobias' cello. One grabbed Will's belt, and he freed his gun in time to shoot it off before his loss of momentum left them both open to attack from all sides. He was tempted to keep firing but there was still a long way to go and, he feared, a more pressing encounter at the other end.

"Oh god," Franklyn moaned as he tried to keep up, his palm sweaty against Will's. "Please make them stop."

At last they reached a doorway. Will put his shoulder to it and burst through, stumbling on slick hardwood. Franklyn spilling through the door behind him almost toppled them both, and as they righted themselves Will couldn't help but sigh with resignation. "Should have known," he muttered. They were back on the stage.

Tobias was gone. His cello lay unattended at the center, propped against his stool, and music continued to thunder in waves across the swaying, chattering gallery of corpses, but Tobias himself was nowhere to be seen. There was, however, something else. A long-bodied shape was moving about the audience, at first nothing more than a shadow to Will's eyes. It wasn't until a spotlight blared to life from the rafters and focused on the creature that he was able to make it out.

The figure was only fleetingly human. Its torso and limbs were elongated to an insect's proportions, making sharp angles of its elbows and knees as it crept, chair-back to chair-back, up and down the grisly isles. It had no face or even a proper head, offering only a funnel-shaped swell of stretched flesh where its throat would have been. Rich and rippling bellows flowed from the opening loud enough to make Will's ears hurt. Unlike its worshipers, the creature had no flesh at all, and the spotlight glistened off its exposed muscles and patches of bloody bone. The audience reached up as it passed, their knobby fingers plucking at its tendons to produce a cacophony of ill-matched intonations.

Will and Franklyn covered their ears. The entire hall was ringing with the maddening composition, vibrating from walls to stage to bone marrow. It made everything almost fuzzy at the edges and when Will lifted his handgun, he wasn't able to focus on the monster with any certainty. Frustrated, he fired a warning shot toward the creature and wasn't surprised when it only barely clipped a back leg. But it did the trick.

Tobias turned toward them. The audience continued to bow his strings as he passed over them, and his voice resounded in the vibrations as if each pluck were a different movement of vocal cords, lips, and tongue. "I knew you wouldn't miss the finale," the entire hall said, through him. "It's going to be quite a show."

"Tobias...?" Franklyn was pale and nearly faint as he watched the creature pace back and forth along the first row. "No, no. This isn't real."

"I can't wait to strip you bare," Tobias said. He twisted his clawed fingers into the chest of one of the corpses and pulled, ripping a stretch of flesh off of it. The corpse continued to play his wrist tendons adoringly. "I'll make such beautiful music of you. Or at least, the best I can, with such a poorly tuned instrument."

"Please, stop." Franklyn tried to step forward, but Will took his elbow to keep him back. "Please tell me what's going on!"

"It's just like you see here," said Tobias as he continued down the row. "See what I--"

Will fired three shots. Each caught Tobias in the side while he was distracted, and he reeled, his notes turning foul. Ignoring Franklyn's panicked shouts Will moved to the edge of the stage and fired again, shredding one of Tobias's elbows and killing a few of the corpses with it. Everything began to scream. Tobias turned toward him, aiming his bell of a throat directly at Will, and the outpouring of malicious tones was so great he was forced to retreat. His knees wobbled and his head throbbed as if it might split apart.

Tobias leapt to the stage. His wounded elbow gave way with the impact, but he barely seemed to care; he tore the broken half-limb free and wielded it like a bat, knocking Franklyn to the ground. Will tried to raise his gun again but soon found himself in Tobias' sights, the full fury of his bodily instrument bearing down on him. Covering his ears didn't help. The reverberations passed straight through him, tearing into his skull, until he felt a stab of pain and a _pop_ that made the world go silent.

Will collapsed onto his side as Tobias moved on. He could feel blood in his ears and the stage seemed to pitch and sway beneath him. Everything was spinning. When he managed to lift his head he saw Tobias crouching over Franklyn, his spidery limbs folded. Will couldn't hear whatever was coming from Franklyn's wide mouth but he _felt_ the screams in the pit of his stomach as Tobias dug five razor fingers into his collar.

Will gripped his gun with both hands and aimed. His entire body was shaking and there were tears in his eyes, but he waited until he had a shot and squeezed the trigger. It took four shots but he managed to hit Tobias' wrist, sheering his hand from arm. Will was almost glad that was deaf to whatever noise Tobias made then as he jerked back. Crawling across the stage on bloody stumps, Tobias came back for him.

Will thought distantly that maybe the stag was right; maybe there was no way to halt these creatures short of killing them. When Tobias leaned over Will he grabbed the lip of his throat with one hand and shoved his entire gun arm inside, firing off bullet after bullet. He couldn't hear the shots or even feel them with how wildly Tobias began to thrash, but he pulled and pulled until the gun was empty, ignoring the rush of blood over his shoulder. Finally, thankfully, Tobias slumped onto the stage. With a few last, futile struggles, his long limbs went still and the vibrations ceased. The entire hall became steady again.

Will slipped his arm out of the creature and crawled on hands and knees until he had put several feet between it and him. His breath burned in and out of his lungs, disorienting him with its silence. When finally he had at least some composure, he stumbled over to Franklyn.

Franklyn was still on his back, crying and shaking as he tried to pull Tobias' hand out of where it lay embedded just above his clavicle. He was trying to speak, but Will shook his head and pointed to his ears. "Stay still," he said, not sure if Franklyn could hear him. With a deep breath he grabbed the dead hand and yanked it free.

Franklyn jerked, gagging, and Will did his best to support him until he began to calm. Franklyn's hands were bloody but they were strong as they clutched Will's arm, and it filled him with relief. They had done it. He looked again to Tobias' fallen body to be sure, and once reassured that it hadn't moved and never would, his attention finally fell to the audience.

The corpses were still in their seats. They stared up at Will and Franklyn with their sunken, dead eyes, and began to clap. Their polite applause, knowable to Will only through the sight of their pale hands coming together, filled him with a dread eerily worse than anything else they had offered him. As he and Franklyn cowered together beneath the stage lights they did not grow in enthusiasm nor wane in disinterest, just clapping, attentive and otherwise unmoving.

Will had to look away, and in doing so he noticed a hole had opened near the back of the stage. "Franklyn," he said, and when Franklyn didn't respond, he gave the man a shake and started to pull him up. "Let's go. We can get out." Step by step he led Franklyn toward the familiar portal and prayed it wasn't taking them deeper. "We can get out."

The stood together over the hole, its cold and musty breath erasing the sweat from their faces. It took a lot of gesturing and coaxing, but Will finally was able to convince Franklyn into the pit. As he disappeared into the maw Will told himself to feel elation. He had done it. He had killed a monster and saved a man's life. This was what was expected of him.

He took a deep breath and jumped in.


	7. Chapter 7

Will was used to falling. He surrendered to weightlessness, didn't bother to try and slow his descent or reroute. There was only darkness to fall into anyway. His mind drifted away as he went deeper and deeper, until the nothing around him swirled into shadow-shapes. He saw gaping maws in the black, pale, jagged stretches of bone, grasping hands and empty eye sockets.

And then gravity reversed, and he was rising. Human warmth supported his back and behind his knees, and he was lifted, carried out of the darkened laundry room and into the living room. The shadows strengthened into a familiar arrangement of furniture and wandering dogs, and past them, lights from a police cruiser flicked blue and red through the open windows.

Will tried to speak, but a deep voice close to his ear soothed, "Hush, Will. You're all right."

Step by step, Will allowed himself to be carried to the front door. It wasn't until they were on the porch, cool wind on his sweaty forehead, that he registered what was happening. "Wait." He tried to struggle, but his limbs were heavy and cold, and the arms supporting him too strong. "Wait, I can't leave."

"It's all right, Will," said Hannibal. "You're with me."

"Will!" Alana approached as they put the house behind them. When Will turned his head to face her, he took a moment to observe the suddenly bustling scene around his home: a patrol car sat in the driveway as well as an ambulance, each with their personnel milling about. He thought he saw inhuman shapes among them, but then Alana took his hand, and he drew his focus back to her.

"Will, thank god," she was saying, rubbing his hand between both of hers. She walked backwards to stay with them as Hannibal carried Will to the waiting ambulance gurney. "We were so worried." She looked to Hannibal. "The gun...?"

"It wasn't with him," said Hannibal.

Will sighed as he was laid out on the gurney. "I'm all right," he tried to say, but it came out more like a groan. He was suddenly so tired and couldn't protest the blanket being thrown over him by the paramedics. "What happened...?"

"You're all right, Will," Hannibal said again, his hand warm and heavy on Will's forehead. "Just rest, for now. You're safe."

"But I'm...." Will squinted at the pinpoints of light high above him. "I'm outside. I can't..."

"I don't know if the hospital is the best place for him now," said Hannibal, and it took Will a moment to realize he wasn't being spoken to. "What he needs is comfort and sleep."

"He's freezing," said Alana. "He needs to be checked out. God only knows what happened to him in there..."

"I was..." Will started to explain, but no one seemed to hear him. No matter how he struggled to catch Alana and Hannibal's conversation, their voices kept drifting in and out of focus. It wasn't until they were joined by a deeper, equally familiar voice that Will fought again for their attention.

"Jack!" Will shoved at the blanket covering him and got one hand free, reaching into the mess of colors above him. "Jack, you have to..."

"Will?" Jack took his hand, and the pressure of his wide palm helped banish some of the fog inhabiting Will's senses. "What is it?"

Will licked his lips and was finally able to get it out. "You need to find Tobias Budge," he said. "African American male, mid to late thirties, maybe. He's a musician, I think, or he wishes he was."

"Tobias Budge," Jack repeated, committing the name to memory. "Who is he? Why am I looking for him?"

"He's..." Will grimaced. "He's dead. But there's another one--Franklyn. Franklyn..." He growled in frustration. "I don't remember his last name. Starts with an F, something French-sounding. They were...friends..."

Everything was beginning to hum. Will closed his eyes tight and then opened them, praying for clarity, but the lights had gone from blue and red to just red, and he could feel the icy claws from the house trying to pull him back in. He knew he shouldn't fight it, but he was so tired, and he didn't want to face the hole again so soon. "Where's Dr. Lecter?"

"I'm here, Will."

"Don't go." As soon as Jack let go of his hand, Hannibal replaced him, and Will relaxed; the hum was already receding. "Stay with me," he said, not caring how it worked, only that it _did_ work. "It'll take me back if you go..."

"I'm not going anywhere," Hannibal assured him. He smoothed Will's hair out of his eyes and, likely without realizing, banished the icy claws and blood-red luminescence. "They're going to take you to the hospital, now. I'll ride with you."

Will closed his eyes and allowed the paramedics to tuck his blanket back in before loading him in the back of the ambulance. He didn't sleep; he faded in and out, his world hazy but peaceful, barely conscious of the vehicle taking him further and further away from the house. As promised, Hannibal held his hand the whole way. 

By the time Will regained his full clarity, he was in the hospital. He remembered only flashes of mumbling his way through nurse's questions and a few basics tests, but even the observation room bed felt good against his weary back, and the IV fluids did wonders for his clarity. Still, he kept his eyes closed to give a guise of sleep. With Hannibal keeping the room quiet and demon-free he rested for the first time in days.

Alana eventually joined them, bringing with her a pair of coffees. Will couldn't help but perk with the smell, and he peeked one eye open. "Is one of those for me?"

"You've got your saline," said Alana, though she didn't look like she would be able to support humor for long. She passed one of the coffees to Hannibal and then took a seat next to Will's bedside. "How are you feeling?"

"Better." Will tilted the bed so he could sit up and face them more easily. "Thank you, both of you, for being here for me. I know I've been--"

"Will," Alana interrupted. "Stop. Whatever's happening, it's not your fault, and we're here to help." She gave his hand a squeeze. "I'm sorry that I didn't believe you, before."

Will's chest tightened when he remembered everything from before going into the hole. "I'm sorry I made you a part of this," he said. 

"I just said it's not your fault." Alana leaned back and finally looked to Hannibal. "What did the doctors say?"

"They weren't able to find anything serious," he answered. "He's underweight, malnourished, dehydrated, but unless something shows up in the blood test he won't be admitted."

Will glanced to his arm; he didn't remember having blood taken. "Did you..." He took a deep breath. "Did you ask for psych to come down here?"

"No. I did not." Hannibal's expression softened ever so slightly. "Three psychoanalysts in one room are quite enough, I think."

Will managed to smile, but before he could say more, he was drawn to the sound of approaching footsteps. Jack came around the curtain, and with him came a heavy set man with a full beard, his clothes disheveled. When he saw Will his jaw dropped and his eyes opened wide, filing with tears.

"Oh my God," said Franklyn. "You're really real."

Will's heart thudded almost painfully, and by the time he'd clambered out of bed Franklyn was there, grabbing him up in a bear hug. Jack said something, alarmed, but Will motioned him and the others back. His throat was tight with emotion as he returned Franklyn's embrace, relieved and incredulous. He even laughed. They leaned back and just looked at each other for a long moment, assuring themselves that they were awake and what they'd experienced was real. And they laughed.

"Will?" Jack interrupted, eyebrows raised. "I assume this is the 'Franklyn' you meant?"

"Yes." Will wiped his eyes, his other hand staying rooted on Franklyn's shoulder. He wasn't sure he could have let him go if he wanted to. "Yes, this is Franklyn. How did you--"

"As soon as I woke up, I went to Tobias' house," said Franklyn, just as firmly latched onto Will. "I told myself it was just a dream, and I almost gave up when he didn't answer, but then the cops showed up, and..." He grimaced through fresh tears. "He's dead. They found him inside--he's dead."

"I know." Will shook his head. "I'm sorry."

"They might have taken him in as a suspect, if you hadn't given me his name first," said Jack, stepping forward as Hannibal and Alana looked on in confusion. "So tell me something. How did you know?"

"He saved my life," Franklyn said immediately. "I can't explain it--I don't know what happened, but this man--Will? He saved my life. Wait--wait, look." Franklyn unbuttoned his shirt, pulling it down to show off four circular bruises across his collar. "It was _real_. It _happened._ "

Will frowned as he brushed his thumb over the bruises. "It happened," he murmured. "But why..."

Franklyn abruptly straightened, looking past Will. "Dr. Lecter?"

Will flinched, and when he glanced behind him he wasn't sure what to make of Hannibal's uncomfortable expression. "You know each other?"

"Hello, Franklyn," said Hannibal.

"Hello, Doctor." Franklyn smiled sheepishly. "He's my psychiatrist. My God, we're going to have so much to talk about next session."

"Will," said Jack impatiently. "I need an explanation."

"I know--sorry, I just..." Will gave Franklyn a pat on the back. "Would you mind giving us a moment?"

"Yeah--yeah, sure." Franklyn shook his hand firmly. "But we can talk about it later, right? Jesus, we _have_ to talk about it."

"We will," he promised, and he would have walked him to the door if he didn't still have an IV in his arm. He gave Franklyn a gentle nudge to send him on his way. "Just wait outside for a few minutes."

Once Franklyn was outside and in the company of Jack's agents, Will took a seat on the bed. "I'm beginning to piece it together," he said as his friends listened. "It took some help from Elliot Buddish, but at least I know what this thing wants from me."

"Elliot Buddish," Jack repeated. "The Angel Maker?"

"Yes."

"He's dead, Will."

"Jack," Alana interrupted gently. "You're going to have to keep an open mind on this one."

Jacked puffed himself up, but before he could get anything out, Will carried on. "Nothing I'm about to tell you is going to make sense," he said. "But it's all true. Something supernatural is happening to me. Maybe it's..." He hated to spout out theories he couldn't understand himself, but too much had happened, and he had to speak his mind. "Maybe it's part of the gift I've had all along, being able to see and understand people through and through. But when I killed Garret Jacob Hobbs...or maybe it was more recent than that, maybe it was even Elliot, I don't know, but something _evil_ found me. I can't explain it better than that, but it's evil that's allowing my killers to keep on killing after we've caught them, and it's evil that's letting me clean it up."

"Evil," said Jack. He rubbed his eyes. "I can't believe--"

"Jack, it's true," said Alana. "I've seen it."

"Excuse me-- _what_ , _exactly_ , have you seen?"

Will watched very closely as Alana sat up straighter in her chair. She was always so composed, but he could see the memory of what she'd seen hidden behind her eyes. "When I was alone in Will's house, I saw a creature," she said. "A man with a head like a stag. It showed me Hell." She shook her head as if she couldn't believe it herself. "None of us really understand, but considering how many people have died, and the circumstances surrounding those deaths, it's time we all accept that what Will is talking about is real."

Jack frowned, and Will was bracing himself for yet another round of skepticism when Hannibal said, "I've seen it as well."

Will turned on him. He felt his blood hot in his face as he listened to Hannibal say, "It's real, Jack. However it's happening, these murders are being committed in a world apart from ours. We are only seeing the results."

Jack stared at each of them in turn, waiting for someone to let him in on the joke. When several beats had passed, he shook his head. "All right," he said. "All right. You're telling me that the scene I was just at--Mr. Tobias Budge, six exit wounds and no visible entrance wounds--was _your_ doing, Will?"

Will gulped, remembering the harsh words Hannibal had had for him earlier. "It was," he confessed. "But it was self-dense. Franklyn will say the same thing." He frowned down at his hands. "Technically I was at home the entire time, but it was still me."

Jack sighed and began to pace. "I am _trying_ to believe you," he said. "But even if I did, I don't know what to do with this case. What do I put in my report? That you confessed to killing a man from your couch? Because you had a clairvoyant vision that he was really a murderer himself?"

"Was he?" asked Alana. "A murderer?"

Jack stopped pacing, but he continued to shift his weight back and forth as he considered the truth. "Just before I walked in I got the call from Katz," he surrendered. "They found instruments in Budge's basement that tested positive for human blood. That's all I know for now, but if you were in that basement--"

"I wasn't," said Will, his pulse quickening. "I didn't know him before I met him in the Otherworld--I only knew his name because Franklyn told me." He wound his fingers in the bed sheets. "But he was a monster. That's why the stag brought me to him. Before it was the killers I already knew, but now it's sending me out to find them."

"Will," Hannibal warned gently. "Don't get carried away."

"But that's the end game, isn't it? Elliot was right: my job is catching monsters, and now I can do it better than ever. I can find them--I can save their victims before they get to them, just like I saved Franklyn."

"But what you're doing is also costing lives," said Hannibal. "You said yourself, this creature that's guiding you is evil. It may be the reason these killers have acquired supernatural prowess as well. You could be unintentionally perpetuating a cycle."

Jack was pacing again. Alana cast him a glance as if wishing he was out of the room but then spoke her mind anyway. "Do you _have_ to kill them? I know you want to be able to help people like Franklyn, but there has to be a better way of utilizing this...ability of yours."

"I don't know," said Will. "Franklyn and I tried to run away from Tobias, but...he wouldn't let us. It wasn't until he was dead that we were able to leave. But...I don't know. There may be some way I haven't discovered yet."

Jack stopped to stare at them. Will knew what he was going to say before it came out of him. "If you could. If there was a way for you to identify these killers _without_ killing them--"

"You want me to go after the Ripper," finished Will.

"It would certainly do a lot to convince me."

"Wait," said Alana. "You just admitted you don't believe this, and now you want to put him to work?"

"Our only priority in this is to find a way to make it stop," said Hannibal. "Not to throw Will into the lion's den."

Will kept his eyes downcast as he leaned back into the bed. He could feel the hum returning, like bowstrings being strummed beneath his skin. The house was trying to draw him back. Back to the hole.

"He just said he's doing this to save innocent lives," said Jack. "Identifying dangerous psychopaths and bringing them to justice is the entire reason I brought him back into the fold."

Alana was shaking her head before he stopped talking. "But not at the cost of Will's life and sanity. You didn't see what we've seen, and if you had, you wouldn't be encouraging him to go back there."

Will closed his eyes, and in the dark he could see the fields again, the figure in the distance. He could see ribs expanding with each breath into the empty space of its abdomen. He could smell blood and rust on a heavy wind. It was trying to take him back, and he felt thin, as if he might simply dissipate at any moment.

"Dr. Lecter," he said quietly.

Hannibal took his hand. His wide, warm palm gave Will's body substance again, and the fields and the ribs and the blood receded. The hum quieted to a distant ringing in his ears and he felt anchored again. "Why?" he mumbled, forgetting for a moment that there was anyone else in the room. "Why you?"

"Jack," Hannibal said, "would you mind giving us a moment?"

Will could hear Jack's shoes scuff across the floor, but he wasn't leaving. "If you could," he said. "If you could give the Ripper a name without killing him, would you do it for me, Will?"

"It wouldn't do you any good," said Alana. "It's not as if it would be admissible in court."

"We don't have _anything_ on him. At least a name is a place to start. Just let me worry about that part-- _Will_."

Will didn't want to open his eyes, but he did, and he swallowed hard beneath Jack's heavy stare. "If you get a name," said Jack, "you'll tell me. Won't you."

"Yes," said Will. He could taste something wet and rotten pacing circles around the back of his throat. "Of course."

Jack nodded and took a step back. "I'm not going to tell anyone what we've discussed," he said. "And I'll try to keep a lid on Mr. Froideveaux if I can. The local cops can puzzle over Budge." He paused. "I honestly don't know what else to say."

"It's okay," said Will. "I don't, either."

Jack nodded again, gathering himself. "Please," he said to Hannibal and Alana, "look after him." Without waiting for a response, he left.

As soon as he was out of the room Will gave Hannibal's hand a tense squeeze. "You lied to me."

Hannibal let out a quiet sigh and turned to better face him. He didn't let go of Will's hand. "I did," he admitted. "I have seen the creature you and Alana described." Alana leaned forward as well, and Hannibal cast her a glance before continuing. "Not long after Garret Jacob Hobbs, I started to see it at the edge of my dreams. It was only ever an indistinct figure seen from a distance; it wasn't until Alana showed me the picture that I realized it was a consistent apparition."

Will clenched his jaw and forced himself to take a breath before speaking, worried that his anger would come through too strongly. "Why did you lie to me?"

"Will, please understand." Hannibal held his gaze, unflinching. "At the time I believed you were unstable. If I had corroborated any part of your delusion, it could have caused you irreparable psychological damage. You would have done the same in my position."

"He's right," Alana reluctantly agreed. "I know our skepticism has hurt you, but we were only trying to help. And now that we're past that, we can focus on figuring this thing out."

But Will still couldn't let go of Hannibal's hand. "Why you?" he asked again. "Why would it go to you? Why does the evil leave the house when you're there--why can I leave only if you're with me?"

Hannibal shook his head slowly. "I don't know."

" _And_ you know Franklyn," Will persisted. "I can't accept anything as coincidence at this point. You're as involved in this as I am, somehow."

"I was there with you when Garret Jacob Hobbs died," Hannibal suggested. "Perhaps this evil that expects so much of you has touched me as well, however less significantly."

"Less significantly." Will smiled bitterly and finally let go of Hannibal's hand. He wiped his sweaty palm on the sheets. "No kidding."

"Will." Alana moved to sit on the edge of the bed. "Are you accusing Hannibal of something?"

Will blinked, and he had to consider a moment before he was sure of his answer. "No," he said. "No, I'm just...exhausted." He rubbed his face with both hands. "I'm sorry. If not for you I'd still be in there, fighting..." He frowned as he pushed his hands back, touching his ears. It hadn't occurred to him since waking that his hearing had fully recovered.

"What is it?"

"My ears." Will let his hands fall. "When I was in the Otherworld, Tobias ruptured my eardrums."

"The Otherworld?" Hannibal repeated.

Will shook his head. "It's just something to call it. But, it's been like that every time, now that I think of it. Whenever I'm injured there, I'm healed by the time I wake up. I just assumed it was because...I never actually left the house. I was doing battle in spirit form, I guess."

Hannibal caught on. "But not Franklyn. He returned with bruises."

"Where Tobias mauled him." Will looked at his fingers and then felt out the back of his head, remembering the different places where he had been wounded. "However I wounded the monsters, it was echoed in their physical bodies, as if they were real. Franklyn, too. But not me. Not..." Will lowered his eyes as he thought back to the first of his bizarre nightmares. "Not Abigail."

"But Abigail did die," Alana reminded him gently.

"Yes, but...there were two." Will's pulse began to rise and he wasn't sure why; it was as if part of him had stumbled on a truth his conscious mind was too slow or too unwilling to piece together. "For a moment, there were two: a human Abigail, and a monster. She'd been mounted on the antlers. But those wounds didn't carry over to her real body--only what I did to the monster did."

"Then only the monster was real," said Hannibal. "Or perhaps, the part that mattered."

Will shivered. "The face is a mask," he murmured, feeling the dust of a church pew settle in alongside him. "It's the fire that's real."

And he understood. His ears rang and his stomach turned as he squeezed his eyes shut. His face felt hot and flickering, and in the dark he saw himself standing outside the hospital, the stag beside him, looking in through misty windows at a great and terrible beast. It was dark, and hulking, and full of rot. Will could hear its sick murmurs echoing up and down the hospital corridors, its meat scraping along the linoleum floors. 

It was a pathetic, hungry thing. It was ugly and evil, and it sought out ugliness and evil. It assimilated and became _evil_. It was the fire. It was real.

"I'm not the part that matters," said Will with a kind of morbid clarity.

Alana took his hand; her warm skin made him feel like ice by comparison, jolting him back into the hospital, back into himself. "Will?"

Cold sweat inched down Will's scalp and into his collar, but he managed to reel himself in. "I'm all right," he said. "Just tired. Could you..." He glanced between them. "Would you mind giving me some time alone?"

Though Alana leaned back, willing to do as asked, Hannibal didn't move. "If I leave, the house will take you back," he said. "Isn't that what you've been telling us all along?"

Will swallowed. "I don't feel it right now," he lied. "I think I'll be all right. Please, I just--"

"You're not thinking about what Jack said, are you?"

Will stared straight back at him, and for only an instant when he blinked, he could have sworn he was staring into the full black eyes of the stag. "You mean, about the Ripper?" He tried not to appear moved, but just the thought tied his stomach in knots. "Shouldn't I? If any good could come out of this nightmare I've been through--"

"Will, we still don't know enough about this," said Alana. "If you could even find him, what might happen to you if you did? Hannibal was right: our only priority is to make this stop."

"I don't know how to do that," said Will even as his hands shook. He wound them in the sheets. "So in the meantime, shouldn't I--"

"No." Hannibal had rarely sounded so decisive. "No, Will. If it's true that you are fighting personified 'evil,' how can you think it wise to pursue such a man? When I pulled you from that house today you were half dead, for a killer with nowhere near the Ripper's legacy."

When Will wasn't swayed, Alana said, "I still have the materials form the bureau in my car--books on demonology and cult practices. I don't know if it'll do us any good without, I suppose, a priest, but it's worth looking through. Give us a chance to help you through this before you do anything rash again, Will."

Will took in and let out a long, slow breath. "All right," he said, and he hoped that his exhaustion was strong enough that they wouldn't hear the lie beneath it. "You're right. But I really am tired." He reclined the bed and stretched out on his back. "Give me a few minutes."

Hannibal continued to stare at him, and as the seconds passed Will grew colder beneath his eyes, convinced that Hannibal and seen through him. Finally, he stood. "Alana is going to fetch the records from her car," he said. "I'm going to wait on the other side of the curtain, with Franklyn. You'll call if you need me, won't you?"

Will's first attempt at an answer came out breathless, so he clenched his fists against his stomach and tried again. "Yes. I will."

Alana leaned forward to press a kiss to his cheek before withdrawing. "Chin up, Will," she said, a smile hard-carved on her face as she followed Hannibal out.

As soon as they were out of sight, Will closed his eyes. He let the hum swell up through his ears, let in the mist and the roiling fields and the silent, bloodless beast. He knew the answer wasn't written in some FBI guidebook, no ancient tome. It was already in him, and he had simply been too cowardly to look.

Will opened his eyes. The hospital had faded at its edges, leaving his small, shielded corner a gray chamber of chilling fog. When he sat up, the IV fell from his arm, and he rolled his sleeves down over goose bumps. He couldn't see the stag but he knew it was close, could feel its breath against the back of his neck as he climbed out of bed. He didn't even have to go back to the house, because the stag had brought Hell to him.

The wall to his left was gone; it its place was a hole, gaping and black, blood smeared across its jagged edges. Will stepped in front of it, letting its breeze stir his hair and sting his eyes. He breathed it in. "Take me back to the church," he said, and somehow, he believed it would work. "Take me to Elliot Buddish." The hole made no answer, but he climbed in anyway and began to run. It didn't feel as if he were running through a tunnel anymore, but rather an open, endless space. Eyes straight ahead he ran until his knees ached, " _Take me to Elliot Buddish_ ," hissing out of him with every breath.

He came to a door--and impossible door in a barren landscape--and when he shoved it open, his next step was on creaking wood. He threw himself through the opening and slammed the door shut behind him. It echoed against the tall, crooked ceilings, and Will laughed despite himself. He was in the church.

"I can control it," he muttered. He felt out the door behind him and knew that if he passed through it again, he could find his way to the Shrike's nest, or the Farmer's field, or wherever other hellscape he wished. The accomplishment, frightening though it was, filled him with a short but very welcome burst of pride. "Damn it. Could I always, or is it just because I..."

"I suspect it's a bit of both," said Elliot.

Will saw him out of the corner of his eye, a flash of too-long limbs and stitched wings, but when he looked for real, only the human Elliot Buddish was standing behind the alter.

He smiled. "Hello again, Mr. Graham."

"Elliot." Will smiled back, relieved and pleased with himself, up until he remembered why he had come. "What do you mean, both?"

"Traversing the Otherworld is part skill, and part practice," said Elliot, welcoming him closer. "As far as I'm able to tell. It's good to see you're all right, Mr. Graham, but I'm afraid I don't have any more answers for you than when you left."

Will strode down the aisle, consciously avoiding any glance toward the dusty pews. "I might have some," he said. "You were right--I'm here to kill monsters. I think that's what this has all been about. It's been training me, in a way, so that I'd be strong enough."

He stopped on the other side of the alter, his breath suddenly hard to come by. He licked his lips and forced the words out. "So that I could eventually face the evil in me."

Elliot tilted his head to the side. "In you?"

"Yes." Will braced both hands to old wood to help keep himself steady. "I've seen it. That's why even when I'm hurt in the Otherworld, it doesn't actually affect me--this form I'm in isn't the real me. _I'm_ the mask. But that thing, that monster." He shuddered, sick to his stomach and unable to deny the truth any longer. "That's _my_ monster. Isn't it?"

Elliot turned and walked away. "I have something for you," he said.

"Dr. Lecter knows somehow," Will continued as he followed Elliot toward the organ. "I think he's been trying to protect me. He knows I'm not ready, or else that..." He grimaced. "...that it'll kill me. So far I haven't been able to solve anything without killing--"

Elliot picked up a wrapped bundle from the organ bench and offered it with both hands. Will hesitated, expecting something gruesome and ominous, but when he peeled back the cloth all he found was his handgun and a furniture nail.

"You left these behind," said Elliot. "I thought you might want them back."

Will let out a quiet, incredulous huff. "I didn't think.... Thank you." He checked the gun and found four shots left in it. He almost didn't take the nail, but then he remembered how useful it had been, and he slipped it into his pocket. "Elliot, please. If you know anything else about all this..."

Elliot worried his bottom lip between his teeth. "I can't tell you anything else, Mr. Graham."

"Does that mean you _do_ know something?" Will shoved the gun in his belt and grabbed Elliot by the shoulders. "Why can't you tell me? People's lives are at stake-- _my_ life is at stake!"

Elliot cringed away from him. "I'm sorry," he said. "There are some things even the Otherworld is afraid of."

The doors burst open, ripped from their hinges and sent crashing into the pews. Through the opening there appeared a giant hand, six fingers wound together with strips of peeling flesh, white bone visible at the tips and knuckles. It roared down the church, dragging behind it a twisting, fractured arm like a mad serpent. Will leapt aside, cringing beneath a hail of shattering wood and raining hymnals. By the time he looked back Elliot was caught in the demon's grip, his wings crushed between its fingers, his already contorted face broken with anguish. Something beyond the church bellowed loud enough to shake the rafters, and then the hand was gone, sucked back through the broken entrance with only a smear of blood on the aisle in its wake.

"Elliot!" Will clawed to his feet and ran after them. He didn't know what to think or what he could do, but he sprinted back into the sea of nothingness. Far off in the distance he could hear Elliot screaming, and it pushed him faster, until his weary body was on the verge of collapse. He ran and gasped and ached until he became aware of something running alongside him. He didn't have to look to know.

"I'm ready!" he shouted at the stag, his frustration blurring into desperation. "Whatever it is you want me to do, I'll do it! Just let me finish this already!"

The stag grabbed his wrist and pulled. Suddenly they were in open air, falling, wind like razors on Will's skin. He tried to yank his arm free but the stag held fast, until the earth rushed to meet them, and Will found himself collapsing into Hannibal's arms, a sturdy, _human_ hand circling his wrist.

"Will," said Hannibal crossly. "I told you--"

Will shoved away from him, but as soon as he was on his own two feet he stumbled back into a wall, his heels dragging on linoleum. "Damn it," he hissed, shoving angry tears out of his eyes. "No, wait, send me back. Elliot is--"

Will raised his head and stopped. He was in the hospital, but it wasn't the one he had left. The bustle of doctors, nurses, and patients was gone. Instead of urgent chatter and wailing equipment there was only a high pitched whine in the distance, like an old air raid siren, rippling up and down the dingy walls. Everything was dark and gray and dull. The halls were lined with fog.

And Hannibal stood across from him, taking it in with wide eyes. His normally unflappable composure cracked in the wrinkles around his mouth and the furrow in his brow. "Will...?"

"No," said Will, the cold seeping all through him. "No, you can't be here."

Hannibal drew two fingers over the surface of a crash cart and rubbed them against his thumb, frowning at the dirt and rust left behind. "So," he said quietly. "Perhaps I've been affected significantly after all."

"No, no, this isn't..." Will turned in a circle, panicking in his search for an escape point or even a hole, but he knew better than to think he'd find one. He took a deep breath and turned to Hannibal, but before he could speak, he was interrupted by a low, rumbling growl.

Something was coming down the hall.


	8. Chapter 8

It stalked toward them on four legs, the meaty weight of its paws punctuated by sharp clicks of its long, gnarled claws. As it emerged from the fog Will pulled his gun free, but one look at the creature kept him from firing. It took the rough shape of a hound, with raw, exposed muscles clinging haphazardly to splintered bones, and its muzzle was bloodied and lined with jagged teeth. A few days ago, Will would have panicked at the sight of its bloody prints on the tile, its grotesque, canine horror, but he already knew it wasn't the worst he had to face, and he couldn't afford to lose his composure or waste bullets.

"Will," said Hannibal, taking a slow step back.

"I only have four shots." Will put the approaching creature in its sights but didn't fire, backing away. It growled, making the stringy flesh around its throat shudder visibly. "We're going to need to find weapons."

The beast charged without warning. Will pulled the trigger, and his shot ripped down one side of its skull, but the beast didn't even flinch. Hannibal shoving the medical cart into the center of the hall tripped it up and bought them enough time to run, but Will knew it wouldn't do any good if they couldn't find a way to kill it--and the others he could hear further down the hall.

Hannibal spotted the locker room first, and he dragged Will inside, slamming the door behind them. The dog-beast leapt and pawed at its narrow window but the glass held, even when two more hit the door a moment later.

Will kept his gun out until he was sure the room was clear, and then he shoved it in his belt so he could begin searching the lockers. "Well?" he taunted, unable to help himself. "You believe me now, don't you?"

Hannibal shed his jacket and tie and rolled up his sleeves. "I am sorry," he said. "But maybe we could save 'I told you so' for another time."

There was a supply closet in the corner. Will yanked it open, but of the various cleaning supplies only a mop and a fire extinguisher seemed helpful. He handed Hannibal the latter. "We're going to have to fight," he said as he wedged the end of the mop between the door and the frame. "Those dogs aren't what we're here for. We have to find the monster that's at the heart of this and kill it. That should open a hole up for us."

Hannibal hefted the fire extinguisher, testing its weight and giving a few experimental swings. "I thought you were going to try to find a way out of this _without_ killing," he said.

"I was, before you showed up." Will snapped the cloth end of his mop off, leaving a jagged wooden edge. He fetched some duct tape from the closet to wrap a better grip for himself. "It's one thing if it's just me--this is _my_ problem. But if you're here, I'd rather just do what I know will work and get you out as soon as possible."

Hannibal took his arm, and Will tensed, somehow hoping that the connection would banish the fog and rust and howling, monstrous dogs at the door, but nothing changed. "The last time you were in this 'other world' you killed a man you had never met before," Hannibal said. "This monster you want to hunt could be anyone or anything. Are you sure you're prepared to face the consequences if we go through with this?"

Will swallowed, staying very still in Hannibal's grip as he returned his hard gaze. He could feel the beast far below them, its voice reverberating up through layers of earth and into his bones. "I am," he said. "I have to be."

The door rattled against its hinges, and Will and Hannibal turned just as it buckled. Hannibal was closer, and the first of the hounds headed straight for him, its jaws wide and bloodied. Will's flash of panic wasn't nearly warranted; Hannibal swung his fire extinguisher with perfect aim and no hesitation, cracking the beast's already fractured skull open. It dropped to the ground, tripping up the second hound well enough that Will had plenty of time to put his mop-spear through its eye socket. The third hound was a little smarter, dancing out of range and baring teeth, but a few jabs of Will's spear drove it back towards Hannibal for a clean blow to the head.

Will stuck each of the hounds again before he was satisfied that they wouldn't get back up. "Okay," he said, nodding appreciatively toward Hannibal. "Okay, that...wasn't so bad. We can do this."

"Yes, and we'll have to," said Hannibal. He moved to the door and peeked cautiously out into the hall. "I don't see any more."

"That doesn't mean they're not there." Will joined him, adjusting and readjusting his grip on his weapon. "The monster we're after feels like it's below us. There should be a stairwell at the end of the hall--we might be able to make it, if we run now."

Hannibal nodded. Despite their impossible situation he was remarkably composed. "I'll be right behind you."

Will took one last breath to steel his courage and then took off running. He tried not to focus too hard on the fire door that was their goal, knowing that attack could come at any time, from any angle. And he was right. They had barely made it halfway when the wall on Will's right stripped away in a cloud of rust, and another pair of undead beasts pounced. Will pivoted as best he could in full sprint, trying to draw the tip of his spear around in time, but all he managed was to rake an ineffective wound down the hound's ghastly ribs as they collided with each other and then the wall.

What followed was a flurry of meat and blood, Will jabbing at his attacker, fangs scraping his elbows and knees, and at last Hannibal, plunging fearlessly between them. He was sure he felt a breath of air from the fire extinguisher as it rushed past his neck to strike barking jaws. Will heard the hound cry out, and then suddenly everything was happening faster than it ought to have. He was on the run again, and the dogs were gone--his hand was on the knob for the fire door and he couldn't remember how he had reached it. With Hannibal shoving him into the stairwell there was no time to contemplate, but he did catch a glimpse of the hallway just before the door shut: bloodied, a pair of mangled carcasses close to the wall.

The door slammed behind them, and Hannibal didn't waste any time in ushering Will down the stairs toward the basement. Will was still struggling to catch his breath and make sense of what had just happened when Hannibal asked, "Is it bad?"

"What?" Will stumbled, catching himself between the wall and Hannibal's steadying hand on his elbow. It wasn't until then that he realized his left pant leg was torn, and blood was oozing from where the hound's fangs had sunk into the top of his kneecap. "It's okay," he said as he regained his balance and continued downward. "I'm fine--I'm not the part that... I'm fine." Will rubbed sweat out of his eyes. "What just happened out there?"

"It was a close call." Hannibal's arms and shirtfront were splashed with blood that was too dark to be his own. "At least there were only two."

"But what--" Will reached the landing, his momentum carrying right into the door with a heavy thud to his shoulder. The metal vibrated against him, alive and hungry, filling his chest with crackling, white noise. Something lay beyond, and it banished whatever had transpired in the hall from his mind.

Hannibal touched the back of his neck to steady him. "Will?"

"There's something on the other side of this door," said Will. He concentrated, hoping to sharpen his instinct into a more tangible warning, but his ears had begun to ring.

"Is it the monster we're after?" Hannibal asked carefully.

"I don't know. I don't...think so." Will closed his eyes but that only made him dizzy. "It doesn't have the same... _smell_ as the other one." He feathered a hand over the gun tucked in his belt. "Whatever you did upstairs, we might need it again." He didn't wait for Hannibal to reply before twisting the door open.

He should have known better than to expect a hospital basement. Beyond the door there was only a small, concrete room with five walls, and at the center a ragged pit two meters across. Will's heart leapt for only a moment before he realized it wasn't an exit. The breeze flowing from the hole was cold and dank, beckoning them deeper. It was pitch black, of course, with no indication of what hid below.

"Do we go in?" asked Hannibal.

"Do we have a choice?" Will stepped forward until his toes hung over the edge, half expecting the stag to reach up and drag him down. "It's this or the monsters upstairs." He adjusted his grip on the mop, holding it to the side. "We'll go together. Whatever's waiting for us, we can make it if we stick together."

Hannibal moved up beside him and clasped his hand. It seemed a little absurd but it comforted Will all the same. They didn't count to three, but they jumped at the same time into the dark. Will was used to it. Hannibal was less so, gripping Will tight as they plummeted, but he kept his body straight and ready. As before the hole started as a narrow tunnel, but it grew outward, until the wind howled like shrieking ghosts, filling a great and indeterminable space.

After falling for what felt like several minutes, the ground rose up to meet them. Time slowed, and both men were able to land on their feet, breathing hard but still together and unharmed. The tap of their shoes on the stone echoed about them, and again Will caught a breath of cold, musty air. It smelled like mold on rocks, and when he had enough wits to take in their surroundings, he was only momentarily confused by the site of an old, crumbling castle hall stretching out around them. There were rotten painting frames on the walls, ashes in the corners, broken furniture strewn about. It reminded Will of a tomb.

Hannibal straightened up and let his fire extinguisher drop with a clang. The sound bounced off the far walls and tall ceiling with eerie clarity. His distant, almost haunted expression flickered in the light of a dozen wall-mounted torches. He looked almost breathless. It was the most emotion Will had seen out of him and it felt to him almost more out of place than the hell they were in.

"Do you know where we are?" asked Will.

Hannibal took in a slow breath. He was trying very hard to look composed, but only doing an adequate job of it. "I do." His lip quirked in a strange little smile. "It's Castle Lecter."

They heard their adversary before they saw it. From the farthest end of the shadowed room came a _clink, clink, click,_ like something rattling about in a cage. The sound of it seemed to jolt through Hannibal, and he turned, his eyes focused hard on the dark. As if in answer, the creature stepped forward into the torchlight.

It was another canine, or at least, an approximation of one, though much larger than the hounds from the hospital. On four legs it stalked toward them, all blood-matted fur and jutting bone. Its shoulder was as tall as Will's and its head broad, misshapen, and almost black with splattered evidence of a recent kill. With every step its frame shuddered, its breath heaved, and in the shell of its mauled-out chest cavity a small animal skull beat, _clink, clink, clink,_ against a cage of exposed ribs. But it was the eyes that struck Will. In that broken, soiled mess of a muzzle gleamed a pair of shockingly blue and disarmingly human eyes.

Hannibal retreated a step. Any sane person would have done the same, but Will took a deep breath and brandished his spear. "It's not...It's not _really_ a monster," said Will, trying to convince himself with Elliot Budish's wisdom. "It's a metaphor for a man. We can kill it." He nudged Hannibal with the blunt end of the mop. "Come on--get ready. We can do it, just like the dogs upstairs."

"It's not a dog," said Hannibal, his voice distant and almost sing-song as he retrieved his fire extinguisher. "This one's a wolf."

The wolf charged, its face splitting twice to reveal four jaws of long, needle-like teeth. Will braced himself and stared down its gaping throat. When the wolf was close enough he thrust with all his strength, driving the point of his weapon deep into its soft palette. He hoped there was something resembling a brain in the creature's distorted anatomy, but even when it howled, blood spurting from the wound along with great huffs of putrid breath, he knew he hadn't done enough. The jaws snapped shut, making toothpicks of Will's mop, and a great clawed paw smashed into his side. The air rushed out of his lungs and he was thrown to the ground.

Will heard Hannibal join the fight. The sickening smack of metal to meat filled the castle hall, and Will shook his head clear just in time to see Hannibal bash in one of the wolf's jaws. Teeth sprinkled the floor. The beast roared in fury, batting at Hannibal with its claws and catching fabric more than once. "We can do it," Will said again as he clambered to his feet. There was only a foot and a half of stick left for him to use, but he attacked all the same, driving his short spear into the wolf's throat.

The wolf gurgled and thrashed, but it was not deterred. It butted Will back with its meaty shoulder and kept most of its focus on Hannibal, pawing and snapping as the fire extinguisher continued to fracture its jaws. The skull bounced madly in its bony stomach. Just when Will thought it was slowing down it threw all its weight forward, toppling him and Hannibal onto the floor. Its great head lunged down and sank rows of jagged teeth into Hannibal's torso.

Hannibal didn't cry out, but Will knew immediately that it was bad. The wolf latched on, and no matter how hard the two of them clawed and pounded at its jaws, it wouldn't let go. Will yanked the gun out of his belt and put two bullets through the wolf's eyes, but it _still_ wouldn't relinquish its victim.

The skull was still clacking. Its hollow _clink clink clink_ rang in Will's ears, above the angry, wet growling and Hannibal's heavy, wet breath. On instinct he swung his arm and fired again, shattering three ribs. The skull tumbled onto the floor and rolled away.

The wolf let go of Hannibal and swung around, its claws digging up stone in its attempts to chase after the wayward skull. As soon as it caught the skull it spread its jaws wide, drawing it into its mouth with a snaking tongue. Will didn't wait to see if it would try to swallow it back into its belly. He grabbed the fire extinguisher and swung into the beast's face, smashing skull against skull, splintering bone into brain. He hit again and again as the wolf cowered before him, until its shrieks became moans and its limbs gave out from under it. Only when the wolf's head was pulp did he finally stop, drop his dented weapon, and return to Hannibal.

Hannibal had his arms wrapped around his stomach. Blood oozed from between them and he already looked pale as he struggled to sit up. Will supported him as best he could; he knew better than to try to see. "Shit. Dr. Lecter, can you stand?"

Hannibal coughed, convulsing momentarily beneath Will's hands. "Not for very long," he said.

Will looked back to the wolf, but it had fallen totally still. He waited a few beats, expecting it to maybe melt away and reveal a human form, to call upon its true identity, but nothing stirred and the rest of the castle was silent. "Maybe that was it," Will said, scanning up and down the hall. "That was the monster--we killed it. Which means..."

He turned toward the near wall and saw it: a hole, its edges red and welcoming, three meters wide. "There." He hooked his hands under Hannibals armpits and helped to pull him to his feet. "That's it--that's our way out. Come on."

"Will--" Hannibal had to struggle to keep his legs under him, even after he was fully upright. He leaned heavily against Will's shoulder; the added weight reminded Will of his wounded knee, and they almost collapsed together. "I need to...stop the bleeding..."

"You need to get through that hole," said Will as he half-dragged him along. "You'll wake up in the hospital--it won't be as bad in the real world, just like with Franklyn. He was mauled here, but when he got back, he only had bruises, right? You'll be all right." They reached the wall, and Will braced one hand on the edge of the hole as he urged Hannibal to crawl inside. "Go--just go. I'm right behind you."

Hannibal obeyed. As he pulled himself clumsily through the opening Will took one last look around the hall and saw nothing. He couldn't say the fight had been easy, but it didn't seem _right_ , somehow. There was still something pacing far below them, waiting.

Will climbed into the hole. When he felt out in front of him for Hannibal's shoes he found nothing, and within moments of crawling he fell out again. His knees, free of blood his or otherwise, struck a lumpy mattress, and he pitched forward onto his face. Despite having suffered his fair share of jarring transitions, he kept still for a long moment, trying to make sense of what had happened and where he was.

He sat up in his bedroom.

Will blinked back and forth at his lifeless house. The sheets were in a tangle at the foot of the bed and the windows were gray with fog. He had never left.

"Dr. Lecter?" Will checked to make sure his knee had healed completely, as always, before leaving the bed. He still had his gun but it was out of bullets and there were no replacements in the nightstand or in the closet. "Dr. Lecter, are you here?" he called as he moved through the bathroom, the spare room, and then down the stairs.

There was no Hannibal Lecter. But Will wasn't alone.

The front door had been sealed. Unlike the invisible force previously, it had been bound with lengths of chain bolted directly into the walls and frames, heavy padlocks where they joined. The stag stood in front of it. Its antlers seemed to take up the entire room, and its organs pulsed out of its ribs at a swift, sick pace. As Will approached breath heaved from its flared nostrils, and it spoke--not with any real voice, but through the house, vibrating into him with understanding.

"Go back in," it said. "Finish it."

Will licked his lips as he sought after a response. The stag had never communicated with him so directly before and he wasn't about to give up the opportunity. "I killed it," said Will. "You sent me in there to kill it, and I did. I thought..." He grimaced. "I thought you were sending me after myself, you know. I was ready for that."

The stag stared straight back at him. He thought at first that it wouldn't answer, that he had hallucinated it speaking in the first place, but then the chains rattled behind it and the house groaned on its foundations. "You were tricked. It gave you something to kill so that you would create an exit for yourself and leave. Don't be tricked. Go back in. Finish it."

"So that I..." Will stopped a few paces from the stag. "So that _I_ would create an exit?"

"Of course _._ "

Will laughed at himself. "Of course," he echoed. He rubbed his aching face. "This has always been about me-- _I'm_ the one seeing them as monsters. I can control where I go, I can control when. I could have made my own way out at any time, couldn't I? I just didn't..." Will laughed some more and wondered if he had stumbled on true wisdom or if he was finally losing his mind. "Did I create all this?" he asked as he crossed the last few steps between them. "It's not just _about_ me, it _started_ with me. I'm responsible for all of this."

The stag lowered its head to put them eye to eye. "Yes, and no. If it were only you, this would be finished already. Go back in, and face it."

"Help me." Will stared it down as best he could. "Or just kill me yourself, if that's what you want. Why can't _you_ end this?" He shuddered around his bones. "Please. I'm telling you, I'm ready."

"I can't." The stag lifted its head again to stare past him. "There are some things even the Otherworld is afraid of."

Will turned, and the rest of the house was gone. All that remained was the sealed door, its locks and chains continuing out into eternity. In its place was the graveyard outside Elliot's church, and a worn, stone path leading past it into a nighttime forest. The trees at the border were twisted so that their trunks formed half circles, creating for Will a perfect hole to travel through.

"Fine," said Will, frustration giving way to petulance. "Fine, I'll do it myself. But you keep Hannibal, and Alana, and whoever else out of it. Understand? This is about me."

"I have no control over that," said the stag. "You do."

"Right..." Will shook his head, and he started off.

After the variety of horrors Will had witnessed of late, the forest was almost pleasant. It was dark, of course, and he could hear things moving about in the unseeable distance, but the air was crisp and clean, and the ground beneath his feet was only soil. He followed the path, ducking beneath the low-hanging boughs, until a familiar _clink, clink, clink_ drew his attention. After securing himself a makeshift weapon from a fallen tree branch, he hurried onward, out of the dense woods and into a clearing.

A cottage squatted at the center. Its roof had partially caved in and fire damage scarred the outside logs. Will thought briefly of the Hobbs' cozy retreat and grimaced at the memory of Abigail on the antlers. It seemed like a lifetime ago when his nightmare had begun in a weathered old home just like this. The clinking was coming from inside. Telling himself he was ready for anything, he pushed the rotten front door in and entered.

The interior of the cottage, though badly damaged by ash and elements, was surprisingly normal. There was no blood old or fresh, and not a single living thing stirred. The only disturbance was from the stove, where a wide metal tub had been set over the long-dead burners. Water sloshed back and forth inside it. Will crept forward, and up on his toes peeked into the cooking pot. A skull was bouncing about on the surface of the water--an animal skull, maybe a small fawn--and made a shrill, scratchy racket against the metal that confined it. Over and over it danced, until Will was almost hypnotized by the sound of it begging the walls for freedom.

Then the ground fell out from under him, and for the last time, he fell.

Will landed in a mound of wet filth. His clothes immediately soaked through, and he didn't need the wall of stench that hit him a moment later to know what he was sitting in. When he tried to move he felt the meat slide over every bit of him, sticking against his hands, neck, hair, mouth. The pile was deeper than he originally thought and his feet had trouble finding purchase. Using his tree branch he managed to dig himself free, but there was no safe ground to tread on--the entire chamber he had landed in was filled with human gore a foot thick and it dragged at his ankles with every step. The rot was overwhelming. Will's eyes watered and he gagged until he was doubled over and vomiting helplessly.

 _Get up_ , he told himself. He wasn't alone in the pit--the _thing_ was with him, huge and putrid and the heart of his every nightmare. _Get up, get up!_

Will's head swam dizzily, but he did stand. He was red from head to toe and he wanted to scream. It wasn't just dead bodies surrounding him, it was ground meat, bones smashed into splinters, stringy organs and clumps of hair. It was like being at the bottom of a sausage grinder. Thinking about it, he retched again.

The thing was only a dozen meters away. It stretched out over its mountain of decimated corpses, a hulking mass of beast the size of a small barn. Torchlight licked up and down its ghastly form, illuminating hunks of flesh strung only loosely from a skeletal frame. Its limbs were long, with too many joints, and its naked skull perched on a long neck dripping with filth. It was the creature from the grocery store. Its wet growl composed of a hundred wailing voices had interrupted Kara Shannon's killing blow. Its nauseating odor had followed Will since the woods outside Abigail's final resting place. He knew at once that it was the fear at the heart of his mad wonderland.

The creature paid him no notice at first, even as he sloshed closer through the sticky clutter. It was plunging its great bony head into the walls, where fresher, more complete bodies formed a hellish lattice like something out of a purgatory sculpture. Some of them groaned or cried out sharply as they were shredded, crushed, and finally swallowed. The beast's eating was almost ravenous. Over and over it tore chunks free and gulped them down, grunting urgently. But it wasn't until Will was nearly within its striking distance that he realized the full, mortifying nature of the thing before him. Just like the wolf above, its stomach had been carved out. The men and women the thing consumed tumbled down its throat and straight through its ribs with no stomach or entrails to travel through. Its meal was wasting itself across the floors--had filled the entire chamber. All its eating meant nothing.

Will forced himself to watch. He almost vomited again a few times and couldn't even wipe his mouth, but he forced himself not to look away until he had absorbed the entire grotesque sight. The beast kept eating. He thought he should have felt some pity for it, but he couldn't work the sensation through him. All he felt was a kind of morbid relief.

"So," said Will. "You're not _me_ after all."

The beast stopped eating. He swiveled his head to face Will and clicked his fractured teeth together. All at once the flesh that covered his neck scuttled up its jaw, severed human fingers twitching like insect legs as they dragged enough meat over the skull to form lips and tongue from past meals. "Are you so certain?" he asked, his voice building itself through layers of strangers' voices.

Will tried again to wipe the blood off his face but wasn't successful. He dropped the tree branch; it wasn't going to do him any good. "Yeah. Actually, I am. This is..." Will stared at the carnage around him and almost went weak in the knees. "This is a little much, even for me."

"Is it?" The beast, both glutted and starved, had trouble maneuvering in the cramped space of the cave, but he did twist his bulk toward Will nonetheless. "How can that be? This is your mind. I am only what you have made me." He lowered his long head so that Will could see each quivering muscle that made up its patched face. "Ahh, how curious I am, to see myself through your eyes."

"I think you'd be disappointed." Will licked his lips and winced. "Or maybe not. How do _you_ see you?"

"I see myself exactly as I am," said the beast. "No more, and no less."

"And..." Will had to fight hard to make himself ask. "How do you see _me_?"

The beast's gnarled lips pulled back. "As a guest at my banquet."

The walls began to squeal, and the beast twisted sharply away. He sank his jaws into the tapestry of corpses that lined his dwelling, gobbling them down. Will watched, nauseated all over again, as the meat slapped wetly atop the pile that was already spilling out of his rotten gut. When it didn't seem to be enough the beast even lowered his head to the floor and shoveled the strewn offal into his gaping throat.

"My God," Will whispered. His knees finally gave out and he dropped into the slop. "My God, what are you?"

The beast smacked his lips and turned back. "Are you really going to waste our time with questions like that?"

Will closed his eyes. He tried to block out his surroundings, just for a moment so he could collect himself, but there was no escaping the blood that was creeping through his scalp. "You started this," he said, testing the words as they came. "You're the heart of this-- _you_ are what everyone is afraid of."

"Flattery does not suit you."

"In the presence of evil...you see and feel evil." Will stared up at the beast. "Are you Garret Jacob Hobbs?"

The beast sighed with displeasure. "That was not an invitation to insult me instead. But if you like..."

The beast's skin began to crawl. Hands peeled away from his chest and arms, reaching into the muck that surrounded him to pull out long shards of bone. They passed the jagged limbs up his shoulders to his skull, creating from the raw materials a pair of broad, multi-pronged antlers.

Will watched the torchlight cast stag-shaped shadows up and down the cave. Some part of him feared that it was his own gruesome apparition before him after all, but when bits of meat fell from the antlers, understanding clicked into place. "This didn't just start with Hobbs," he said slowly. "There was a shadow behind him. Someone inspired by him." He pushed to his feet. "Or someone who inspired him."

The beast shook his head to send the antlers scattering. Will couldn't help but notice when a femur with a spike-like point landed close to his foot. "It started with you," said the beast. "Have you not always known? You have a power, Will. The barrier between your reality and this world is very thin, and you have crossed it many times."

Will's heart skipped a beat. "You're talking about my nightmares? From even before this started?"

"There are a precious few who can traverse the barrier at will," the beast continued. "Even I cannot manage it easily. But you." He edged closer, causing a ripple of blood to lap at Will's shins. "Your mind is so ripe. You let me in so easily. I knew that you would, and that both of us would grow as a result."

"You're in my mind." Will clenched his fists at his side. "You've _corrupted_ my mind."

"I've given you _power_. Your mind uses it as _you_ see fit." He hissed through his teeth. "The power to twist men's souls to your will. To remake the Otherworld in your own image."

"I don't feel powerful," said Will.

The beast loomed over him, forcing Will back a step. "Because you deny it," he said. "You have run and cowered, but I have seen your true self, Will Graham. You are a hunter."

Will pretended not to notice that the beast had twisted its long body, subtly curling around him. "Is that why you gave us that wolf upstairs? So that I would hunt it?"

The beast was quiet for a few beats before answering. "Seeing as I have given you so much, I only thought it fair you grant me a favor as well."

"You needed me to defeat it for you?"

"There are some things--"

"Even _you_ are afraid of," Will finished defiantly. "You wanted me to kill that thing so that I'd leave. You do want me to hunt, as long as it's something other than you, isn't that it? Because we both know I'm not here to _thank_ you for everything you've done for me."

The beast went still for a moment more and then went back to eating. As he gorged himself on the décor Will reached down, feeling around for the femur. One end had been sheared off, leaving a lethal point. He shoved it in the back of his pants. It wasn't much of a weapon, but he wasn't seeing anything else more useful at the moment. Despite the righteous anger propping him up he had no idea where to even begin.

 _It's not a monster_ , he told himself, watching the creature as closely as he could. _It's just a metaphor. You saw past Elliot's, you can see past this. This is a man. This is--_

"You killed Cassie Boyle, didn't you?" Will blurted out.

"Who?" The beast hummed. "Oh, yes, the girl." He reached into the muck behind him and pulled out a partially devoured young woman. Will had only a moment to recognize her as Cassie Boyle before the beast ground her down between his molars. She rejoined the bloody excrement as mush. "Was she not useful to you?"

Will stopped himself before asking about Marissa Schurr; he didn't want to see any more familiar faces between the beast's teeth. "You were already in my mind by then, weren't you?" he pressed on to distract himself. "This avatar of yours crept inside me, and it grew, making me powerful enough that I..." He gulped. "...that _we_ could invade the others. We made Abigail into that monster."

"She hardly needed the coaxing," said the beast, with a peculiar lilt of regret to his inhuman voice. "Did you not know all along that she helped her father kill those girls?"

Will stumbled over his answer several times before he could get it out. "I didn't want to believe it."

"But you knew." The beast hooked its gnarled hand behind Will's back and pulled him closer; Will tensed, fearful that he would discover the femur, but if he did, he didn't react to it. "Your mind crept into hers much the same way mine did yours. You saw her as a monster, and a monster she became, through your power."

"Through _your_ power," Will retorted. "No--this started with _you_." He shuddered as everything began to slide into place. "You've been using me as a conduit to spread your evil. Stammets was killing people before I met him, but it wasn't until he came into contact with me--with _us_ \--that he was able to reach Gretchen through the Otherworld. Just like with Shannon, and Tobias--"

"It is as you say," said the beast, its six claws scratching gently against Will's back as if coaxing him to even deeper revelations. "My power has passed through you into many minds. But it is _you_ who twists them, Will. Your imagination makes reality out of the metaphors."

Will tried to shrink away, but with the skull before him and the hand at his back there was nowhere to go. When he took in a breath he was struck momentarily by the sensation that his diaphragm was expanding into empty air. "No," he said, quietly at first, and then with greater conviction. "No, I don't believe you. It's you." Even with the beast watching so closely he reached behind him, wrapping his shaking fingers around the femur. "You're spreading across all our souls like a disease, trying to make us all like you. You're not just a metaphor, are you?" He stared straight into the skull's empty eye sockets. "I'm seeing you _exactly_ as you are."

The beast let his hand fall, splashing the backs of Will's knees with blood. "What," he said slowly, "do you plan on doing about it?"

Will gripped the bone hidden behind him. His pounding heart seemed to expand, until it filled his entire chest cavity with an anxious, aching staccato. He had no idea what to do. All he knew was that something was surging inside him, desperate to be free of the putrid horror seeping into his every pore and orifice. He couldn't remain any longer in the company of evil, or the beast would twist him, too. He could feel it trying. He had to kill it. Whatever it took and whatever the cost, his only hope was to rid the world of it.

The beast saw his determination and acted. With barely a growl as warning he lunged, jaws parting wide. Will forgot the femur and tried to dodge, but there was no escaping the maw barreling toward him. He was scooped up, and once inside the beast's mouth had barely enough presence of mind to fling himself forward--over its lashing tongue made of a thousand tongues, into the sticky tube of its throat. He held his breath and closed his eyes and let the foul thing swallow him whole.

Will landed face first amongst the meat. When he tried to get his arms beneath him he sank to the shoulders, and he gagged, his stomach clenching painfully as it gave up all its remaining bile. As fiercely as he told himself that he was alive and all right, panic was setting in. His breath was ever harder to come by as he twisted among the guts in his efforts to stand. It was only by chance that he looked up and saw the beast's heart.

It was the only organ in the beast's hollowed shell of a body, pressed up tight against the inside of its spine. Grisly tendons and blood vessels fastened it to the bones like a spider's kill. As it pulsed Will could see shapes pressing into the muscle lining, as if the heart itself was encased in a second skin. He could have sworn he saw the outline of a face.

The beast twisted, sloshing the contents of its stomach about. Will held his breath again and resumed his struggles, but a moment later he was hit and then buried within a torrent of fresh viscera. The eating had continued, and despite Will's efforts, he couldn't keep his head above the onslaught for more than a gasp at a time. Even when he wrestled the femur free, it didn't help him claw out of the muck any faster. He reached, and thrashed, and screamed, desperate for escape. All he could see was red.

A hand snatched him by the wrist. Will fought at first, senseless, until he realized that it was pulling him _up_. With his world reoriented he was able to find purchase with his feet, and he pushed and kicked until his savior drew him up against the beast's ribcage.

"You have to go," said Elliot Buddish. He was human but his body had been mangled: his arm was broken and swollen, his chest caved in with tooth marks, his neck askew. He pushed Will toward a gap between the ribs. "Go. You can't kill it."

"I have to try," said Will, eying the heart that continued to beat over their heads. It was far out of reach even with his weapon but the ribs were decomposing and scarred; there might have been a foothold among them. He searched, trying to ignore the beast's disgusting groans and the flood of its meal, but as the remains shifted and tumbled around him, he spotted a body with a face that was intact.

It was a young woman. Will had only ever seen her in photographs but he recognized her immediately, even with her eyes bulging wide and her pale skin stained red. He drew her closer to be sure, even checked her for a pulse before realizing she was missing her entrails and most of her blood.

"Mr. Graham?" said Elliot.

"It's Miriam Lass." Will felt out the bloody stump at her elbow to be sure. "It's Miriam, which means this is..." He looked again to the heart. "You were right, Elliot--I can control it. Jack asked me to catch the Ripper and this--this is him, isn't it? I brought myself here. The monster I've been trying to hunt was the Ripper all along." He tried again to pull himself up toward the heart. "There's a face in there--I have to see his face!"

The beast's growl reverberated all through his body. The skeleton shook beneath Will's hands and he found himself falling into the meat again, only to be captured by the beast's grasping hand a moment later. Six knobby fingers wrapped him up and yanked him out, uncaring as a pair of ribs were snapped in the process. The world spun around him. Will saw the skull rushing at him and knew the beast wouldn't neglect to chew again. Desperately he stabbed at the hand holding him prisoner, wedging the pointed femur into the knuckle gaps. A strong yank snapped a half-rotted finger off, allowing Will to wriggle free and splash into the blood below.

The beast howled and tried to reclaim him, but as soon as Will had even half his balance, he ran. Teeth clashed behind him but he had no means of fighting back effectively. If only he had bullets, a spear, something--anything--he could have made a stand, but his body was switching into auto-pilot and it was carrying him away. He dashed over skulls and organs and whole limbs, a rush of air at his back as the beast pursued, until he reached the dead end of the chamber.

Will threw himself at the wall and climbed, using his femur like an ice pick. He didn't think it would work, but within a few feet the wall became a tunnel, and the beast could not get its fingers inside to recapture him. It bellowed in fury but Will kept going. Up and up he climbed, until his outstretched hand felt a breeze of fresh air, and then a fleshy, human hand circled his. Will allowed it to help him out of the hole and started when he saw who it belonged to. "Dr. Lecter?"

Hannibal was leaning on his hip, and as soon as Will was out of the hole, he wrapped his arm around his bloodied midriff. He had repurposed his vest into a rough bandage around his torso. "Are you all right?" he asked, his voice hoarse.

Will couldn't even begin to take stock of himself; he was completely soiled, and he knew that if he thought about it for too long he wouldn't be able to move another inch. "Yes. But you--I thought you got through the hole."

"It brought me here." Hannibal nodded to the scenery around them; they were in the cemetery. He had just pulled Will out of a fresh grave. "What's going on, Will? I thought you killed it."

"No, it's..." Will didn't know how to begin explaining, and was spared when the ground beneath them began to quake. The beast was thrashing in its pit. "Come on," said Will, struggling to his feet. He dragged Hannibal up beside him. "For real, this time. We have to go."

"What makes you think it'll work this time?" said Hannibal as they rushed up the hill toward a familiar church.

"It'll work. It's up to me--it always has been. I just need to..."

As they neared the great wooden doors of the church, Will saw the stag waiting for them. He took a deep breath and urged Hannibal behind him. "I know," he preempted it. "I'm supposed to kill it, but I'm not ready. I can't fight it like this." When the stag did not respond, Will tried some more. "I'll come back. Let me go home, so I can at least get some God damned bullets. Then I'll come back, and kill it, and save Elliot if I can. Please!"

Still the stag didn't respond. "You should have warned me what I was up against," said Will, and impatiently he took Hannibal's elbow and tried to steer them both past it. "I'm getting Dr. Lecter out of here. Like you said, it's up to _me_."

Will had his hand on the door when the stag finally turned on them. It knocked Will down with a powerful backhand and then attacked Hannibal, grabbing fistfuls of his shirt. Hannibal cried out as he was thrown up against the church doors; fresh blood dripped from the wound in his abdomen. As he struggled the stag grabbed him by the throat and squeezed, digging its broken nails in.

"Stop!" Will leapt at the stag and pried at its fingers, but it would not be deterred. "Stop--let him go! What the hell are you--" He reached behind him only to realize he had left the femur back at the grave. With Hannibal's eyes already rolling back there was no time to retrieve it. He shoved and punched to no avail, until the stag kneeing him in the hip reminded him of the final option hidden in his pocket. Without thinking Will yanked the furniture nail out of his pants and jabbed it into the stag's throat.

The stag reared back with a sickening gurgle. A burst of hot blood splashed across Will's neck, and then the creature was falling, collapsing onto the path. Hannibal was free. Will took his shoulder and tried to steady him, but then _his_ knees buckled, and his entire body ached with the impact of him hitting the ground. He didn't understand. His throat was on fire from where the blood had struck him and he couldn't draw air into his lungs. The gore from the Ripper's chamber had filled him to overflowing after all, and he was choking on it.

"Will!" Hannibal knelt beside him and put his hand around his neck. "Will, stay with me--I've got you. Just don't move and keep your eyes on me. Can you hear me?"

Will was too stunned to reply. He couldn't make sense of it. The church and the graveyard and the forest faded away, leaving cold linoleum beneath his weary back. The stag lay crumpled beside him, and Hannibal was leaning over him, saving him with hot, steady hands. And when even that began to fade away, he wondered if this was how Abigail had felt, dying in her kitchen. If this was how it was always meant to end, for both of them, bleeding out in Hannibal's arms.

And then that faded, too.

***

Will awoke in the hospital. It wasn't the first time. He was immediately aware of the ventilator tube down his throat, and the cuffs binding his wrists to the bedrails, but he was so relieved to be whole and safe and _clean_ that those discomforts barely registered. For a long time he kept his eyes closed, letting the machines breathe for him. He tried not to think about the gauze wrapped around his aching throat or why it was necessary. He even managed to forget fog and teeth and meat. For the first time in days his mind was entirely his own and perfectly clear.

Someone was holding his hand. There was no mistaking the wide, firm palm, and when Will could convince himself to look, he was relieved all over again to see Hannibal beside him, his suit unstained and intact. His head was bowed with sleep but he had stayed close. Will would have sighed if he could have. He twisted his wrist within the cuffs and squeezed Hannibal's hand tight. Whatever had happened, he was only alive because of Hannibal, he was sure of it. The darkness had always fled from Hannibal. It was as if it was afraid of him.

Will opened his eyes a little wider. In the dark of the hospital room Hannibal's words came back to him, and he saw in his mind's eye the stag, standing in wait at the edge of Hannibal's nightmares. He saw himself, huddling beside a monster of his own making, staring down at the beast in its pit. He felt the stag's breath against his ear. Hannibal's hand in his. A patch of rough skin.

Will stretched his fingers, feeling out a stretch of scar tissue on the edge of Hannibal's pinky knuckle. He had never looked closely before, but when he pressed in with his thumb he could feel the tiny imperfections in the bone where something had been removed. A missing digit, severed probably when he was a young man, existing now only in the reflections of his inner self.

Hannibal slept on. Will clung tight to his hand, grateful that the hospital's machinations were keeping him helpless. He wasn't ready to act yet. He wasn't sure he was ready to even think. But he knew that as soon as he was, the world would open itself to him.

The hole was still with him, and it would take him exactly where he needed to go.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for following this fic to the end! I know it was a long wait (REALLY long for some of you) and I'm sorry about that. But I hope you've had some fun with it or at least been grossed out a time or two. 
> 
> Because it's a Silent Hill story I decided to be a bit cheeky and write multiple endings: Good, Good+, and "Special" (for the SH fans). You'll have to decide for yourself if you met the requirements! Thanks again for reading; all comments are welcome and appreciated.

# Ending 1: Good

Will stood in front of the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. He imagined what it might look like in the Otherworld, with the bricks crumbling, the lattice of vines replaced with rusty, barbed wire, the inmates reduced to hulking beasts. If there was any place that deserved to be a part of Will Graham's nightmare hell, it was the prison that had for years sat at the edge of his conscious fears, a promise of the fate he could look forward to.

Alana squeezed his hand. "Are you all right?"

Will shook himself and managed to smile for her. "I'm fine. I'm just a little annoyed with myself." He stared up at the building. "After everything I've seen and been through, this place is still enough to frighten me."

"You don't have to do this now."

"It's not going to be any easier, later," said Will. As he headed up the stairs he took in a deep breath. It made his neck ache.

He left Dr. Chilton to Alana, who handled the pleasantries and negotiations with ease. Will stood as far to the side as he could without looking like he was trying to escape. The office walls seemed to pulse around him and shadows flitted at the edge of his vision whenever he allowed his eyes to lose focus. His barriers were thinner than ever. For almost three weeks he had managed to keep the darkness at bay, sleeping first in a hospital bed and later on Alana's couch, far from Hannibal but secure in the knowledge that he had finally achieved control. The hole couldn't take him anywhere he didn't want to go. It was harder to convince himself of that in the enemy's lair. He could feel the beast in the basement, wallowing in its gory pit. Waiting for him. Drawing him down.

The orderly led him to the privacy room while Alana waited upstairs. Hannibal was already inside, chained to the table. He was dressed in a patient jumper, his hair combed and whiskers shaved, his posture calm and expectant. The door opened, and their eyes met. To Will, his eyes might as well have been empty sockets. For months he had looked into the devil's face and seen intelligence and compassion and human charm. He wondered then if Hannibal had been that good of an actor, or if he had only ever seen what he expected and wanted to see.

"Hello, Will," said Hannibal as Will took a seat across from him.

"Hello, Dr. Lecter," said Will.

They stared at each other for a long moment, measuring. Hannibal broke the silence first. "I'm surprised to see you here," he said. "Dr. Chilton would not tell me if you had been discharged. I was beginning to fear that with me here, you had simply faded away. Have you been back inside?" When Will didn't reply, he tilted his head to the side. "He isn't allowed to record us in here. You can speak freely. That's why you're here, isn't it?"

"I came here to hear the truth from you," said Will.

"The truth? How ironic." Hannibal folded his hands, the chains clinking against the table with every movement. "Considering how you put me in here."

Will tried to sit up straighter. "You're here because you're a murderer."

"I'm here because you lied to our friend Jack about who slit your throat," Hannibal corrected him. "Not a very honest way to obtain a warrant, Will."

"Using supernatural powers to draw me into a hellscape isn't exactly honest, either. We're not saints, Dr. Lecter. The darkness chose each of us for a reason. _That's_ what I'm here to talk about."

"You may be disappointed," said Hannibal. "I don't know much more than you do."

"You seemed to know plenty during our last conversation," Will retorted. "Down in your pit."

Hannibal glowed ever so faintly with curiosity. "Such as?"

Will started to reply that he knew very well, but then he stopped himself. "You really don't know, do you?" he asked with a growing clarity. "You haven't seen your...other side."

Hannibal continued to stare back at him, contemplating. Will could see him weighing his options: to learn something about himself by offering the truth, or to protect his secrets. Judging whether there was any true merit to either choice. He felt the same way, and he chose sincerity.

"Everything I told you and Alana was true," Will said slowly. "About the monsters in the Otherworld being reflections of people. That I was sent there to fight them. But it was _you_ making them monsters all along." His hands clenched against the table. "Compelling the monster in me to clean up your mess."

Hannibal made a quiet, thoughtful sound, but he didn't interrupt, so Will continued. "You were telling the truth, too, weren't you? About seeing me at the edge of your dreams. You sensed that I was hunting you, making good use of the power you yourself helped me to build."

"I'm starting to wish Dr. Chilton could hear this after all," said Hannibal. "What would he make of it, I wonder?"

"I understand now," Will pressed on. "Neither of us did this alone. If I had been stronger, if I hadn't been so hard on myself, I might have realized what I was capable of sooner. But that doesn't matter now." He leaned forward on his elbows. "Jack found your basement. There's enough evidence down there to keep you in here for the rest of your life. Physical evidence, which means it was you--the real world you--killing those people."

"You want to know," said Hannibal, "why I would risk killing them myself when supernatural methods would have rendered the murders unsolvable." He cocked an eyebrow. "The way yours are."

Will shivered, but he knew better than to let Hannibal drag him down that particular rabbit hole. He was well aware of the sins he had yet to atone for. "I've seen your true self--I've seen your pit. I know at least some of those corpses represented real victims." Remembering the slop beneath his nails, even considering that each and every bit of gore had once come from a living person almost made him ill. "How many people have you killed, Dr. Lecter? As yourself, and as that... _thing_?"

Hannibal was quiet for another long moment. Just when Will was considering a new tactic, he spoke, a smile gracing his lips and fondness in his voice. "From the moment we met, I knew you would be special, Will."

Will drew in tighter beneath his gaze. "I'm not here to talk about me."

"I didn't know how, not at first. But some part of me knew that you and I were alike. You have a potential for great power, as I do. But you can do what I cannot."

"You mean...crossing the barrier."

Hannibal glanced away, his eyes growing unfocused as if viewing a memory. "I've always prided myself on my self-awareness," Hannibal continued, and Will might have found the idea comedic if it wasn't also so horrific. "I have always acted according to my nature. But I have never been able to reach that innermost part of myself the way you did. Ah, how I wish I could see myself through your eyes." He drew his attention firmly back. "If it is true that I lent you some of my power, I can only imagine that I did it in the hopes of you lending me some of yours."

Will swallowed, dreading the possibility that he might have already. "Maybe I should," he said quietly, fueled by fear and righteousness. "You ought to see what you are."

Hannibal smiled hopefully. "It's my turn to ask a question."

"What?"

"Why haven't you killed me yet?" Hannibal's expression didn't change, and yet it did, digging beneath the layers of Will's sweat and skin. "Whether I killed all those people in this world or the next does not matter. They are dead. Locking me away for a few scraps you found in my basement will not stop my better half." Pride soured his smile. "Not if it is as impressive as you've implied. So why not kill me like the rest?"

Will knew there was probably no point hiding the truth, but he tried. "I wanted to get some answers out of you first."

"I've given you the answers I have. So now what?" Hannibal lifted his chin in challenge. "Will you kill me?"

_I don't think I can._ The words were on his tongue and likely in his face, but instead of surrendering them, Will said, "I don't need to. Now that I understand the Otherworld better, I can go in and out as I choose. I can stop you from killing without having to kill you. You, and all the others still out there."

"Ah, I see." Hannibal shook his head even though it didn't look like he was displeased. "You should be careful. You'll have Jack Crawford out of a job before long."

"I'd rather it be me than him out there," Will replied before knowing what he was going to say. The words surprised him with how true they were. "I can take it. I'm already part monster myself."

"Yes. Yes, you are." Hannibal leaned back in his chair and folded his hands. "I'm looking forward to meeting that monster again, very soon."

"You say that now." Will stood up, straightened up, gorged himself on his own convictions. "But I'm going to get stronger. I'm going to keep hunting, keep _using_ you, until everything you have is used up and there's nothing left for you to devour. Your other half is just as much a prisoner as you are now, Dr. Lecter. I've already beaten you."

Hannibal's eyes thinned, and he stayed very still, taking the warning to heart. "We'll see," he said.

Will showed himself out. He rejoined Alana upstairs, and together they left the hospital. As he stood next to Alana's car, waiting for her to fish her keys out of her purse, he glanced to the line of trees on the other end of the lot. A figure stood there. Will could see its antlers twisting upward into the low hanging branches, could hear the slow expansion of its exposed lungs, could even feel it hot breath flaring against the back of his neck. His conscience had always been an impatient thing.

"I'm coming," he murmured, watching the fallen leaves grow dark and quiet all around the waiting stag. "I'm coming."

# Ending 2: Good+

Will stood in front of the hole. It loomed over his bed as it always had, jagged and gaping, breathing cold, damp air into the room. It was as inviting as it was grotesque. He could feel an infinity of space beyond it, a billion souls drifting through the Otherworld in blissful ignorance. They were all tied to him, but one more than any other stood out amidst the throngs. He imagined it at the bottom of its pit, eating. Always eating. Waiting.

Alana squeezed his hand. "Are you all right?"

"You can see it, can't you?" said Will, his eyes trained on the black before him.

"Yes." He felt her shiver. "I can see it."

"I'm sorry." Will took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Whatever you saw when you were alone in the house was my fault," he said. "It wouldn't have hurt you. It just...I just needed so badly for you to believe me."

Alana remained very still; he could almost feel the visions his other half had shown her vibrating under her skin. "Are you going back in?"

"Yes. I have to." Will let go of her hand so that he could check again that his handgun was loaded. His hunting knife was sheathed at his hip and he had another magazine in his back pocket, even though he wasn't confident either weapon would do him much good. "The Chesapeake Ripper is on the other side. He knows I'm coming for him--I have to do something before he kills or corrupts anyone else."

Alana watched his preparations with an eerie calmness, and he wondered if she had already guessed at the truth. "Are you sure you won't go to Jack? Tell him what you know. Let him handle this--it's his job."

Will was already shaking his head. "Locking the Ripper up won't stop him from killing, just like it didn't stop any of the others. I have to kill him at the source." At last he faced Alana, and he even managed to smile. "It's going to be all right," he said. "I'm stronger now. I know I can beat him."

Alana reached up and brushed the backs of her fingers across the gauze still circling Will's throat. "I hope so."

Will took her hand, squeezing it tight before letting go. "Wish me luck," he said, and then he climbed into the hole.

He didn't have far to go. After only a few minutes of crawling through the tunnel of packed earth he came out into the graveyard. The wind howled, chilling the sweat on his forehead and tugging at his bandages. Dark clouds raced past overhead. The grassy meadow seemed to sway like waves, and Will looked from the crumbling headstones to the dilapidated church atop the hill, expecting to see twisting antlers. He saw nothing, but then he heard it: the familiar _clink clink clink_ echoing out of the distant woods.

Will passed through the forest trail. He crossed the weathered clearing and went into the rotten cottage, all the way to the hole waiting for him in front of the stove. For a moment he stood watching the fawn's head bounce and clack within its metal tub, a distant and instinctual horror brewing behind his lungs. The smell of the beast was drifting up from the chamber below, making the little skull even more restless. He wanted to break it. He felt that he should, but then he reminded himself of what he had come for, and with one more deep breath to collect his nerves he jumped into the hole.

He landed in the bloody muck. Even having prepared himself the stench attacked him from all sides, closing off his throat whenever he tried to catch his breath. He quieted his gagging against his sleeve and waited for the nausea to pass. Over and over he told himself that it was only metaphor--as soon as he was finished it would all go away. The blood couldn't touch him.

Finally, he was able to proceed. With his gun in his hand he pressed close to the wall and crept into the chamber proper, where the beast was enthroned among the dead.

He was eating. He didn't stop eating even as Will moved alongside him, lifting his gun. He tried to aim through the spaces in the beast's crooked ribs, searching for the shape of his heart, but there was just enough flesh covering his husk to keep it hidden. With every attempt at stealth, Will edged forward.

"If you kill me," said the beast, "my power will be lost to you."

Will froze. The beast twisted, swinging his long neck around to display his misshapen skull and clacking teeth. There was nothing recognizably human in its nightmarish face, let alone any trace of a trusted confidant and friend, but Will knew. The beast stared down on him with cruel authority and he knew he had been right.

"Are you willing to make that sacrifice?" said the beast, unmoved even as Will turned his gun toward his face. "To give up everything I have given you, for what? So that Jack Crawford can sleep at night?"

Will tightened his grip. He could see the beast tensing, its body drawing taut in anticipation of the fight. It would strike first, as it had before. He had to be ready. He had to do _something_. "I'm going to kill you," he said, stepping closer. The hands of the dead dragged at his knees. "I don't need your power, not if it means you're going to keep spreading your evil."

"By my hand or not, there will always be an Otherworld," said the beast. "A human soul is such a simple thing to corrupt. There will be others, Will. There are already so many others that don't even need my help to kill, and kill, and kill. How will you stop them without my assistance?"

Will glared back at him with resolution. "I'll just have to hunt them down the old fashioned way."

The beast clicked his teeth, and with no more warning than that, his hand lunged. Will squeezed the trigger. He was able to get off five shots before the claws were around him, enough that the fingers gripping him were half shattered and weak. He kicked and thrashed until he was able to snap off enough bone to break free. Landing in the swamp of meat didn't feel like an escape at first, but he forced his knees to stay strong and propelled himself forward, running for the beast's exposed flank.

Will reached the ribs. He thought he saw Elliot twisted among the half-chewed bodies but there wasn't time to worry about him yet. Before he could climb through, though, the beast attacked him again. Will saw the foot kick forward but he wasn't fast enough; he was thrown onto his back with a sick splash of gore.

The blood swallowed him up. It dove into his nose and throat and ears, thick and almost pulsing as if being driven by some disembodied heart. He dropped the gun. In a panic he tried to get his arms beneath him, to push himself up out of the slop and find air, but then the beast's broad skull followed him down.

Pain stabbed into his chest. Pain crushed his shoulder blade and clavicle, pierced his lung, split his throat. Will was ripped from suffocating death beneath the beast's gooey pantry but even when he was lifted high into the air he couldn't draw any breath. His legs kicked freely and everything spun. _I'm not the one that matters_ , he tried to tell himself as the pit smeared into a stain of crimson all around him. _I'm not even real, I'm_ \--

The beast threw his head back, and his tongue snaked around Will's right arm, drawing him deeper into his mouth. His molars crushed Will's sternum and ribs, sent shards of bone into all his soft tissues. His canine split Will's pelvis, his incisors snapped Will's foot off at the ankle. All the world became agony, and Will could only squeeze his eyes shut, still terrifyingly conscious inside his mutilated corpse of a body thinking, _I'm only a mask, only a mask, the real me is--_

All at once the pressure lifted. The beast howled as his jaws were pried apart, wider and wider. Will blinked through the tears and blood and could just make out the shape of the stag beside him. It was digging its feet into either side of the beast's jaw, its antlers raking the roof of his mouth as it strained and pushed. The beast fought back; he thrashed back and forth, and Will quivered with nausea as the teeth already embedded in him rattled his organs. But the stag only doubled its efforts, bracing its feet higher and higher up the beast's mouth until something gave way with a sick _crack_.

Will reached out with numb hands until he had the beast's tongue in his grip. He pulled, not knowing how he could still function but resolute, dragging himself down the beast's gullet. Hot, red breath splattered his face as he dove down the spasming throat. Rather than drop into the pitted stomach, however, Will jumped at the last second. He took hold of the lattice of crude blood vessels that stretched across the beast's innards and followed them to its pounding heart.

Will wrapped his legs up in the stringy veins. Every movement threatened to tear his mangled limbs apart but he fought anyway, until he had his knife in his hands. He plunged it into the wall of meat in front of him. The heart shuddered and gave way, pulsing into the opening he'd carved as if it were eager itself to be free. _Kill it,_ Will thought as he yanked the casing open, revealing a huge, blue human eye. _Kill it_ , he thought as he split open the membranes and clear vitreous spilled over his arms and elbows. _Kill it!_ he thought as he stabbed into it again and again, until the face was screaming into him, until the beast wailed and convulsed, until his limbs grew strong again and his lungs heaved into open space and his antlers shredded the mess of capillaries holding the heart in place.

_Kill him, please kill him,_ Will thought, until the world caved in with a wave of darkness and rot, and then miraculously washed away.

Will didn't move for a long time. He curled up on the cold wooden floor of an old cabin and listened to the air flowing in and out of his dry mouth. The smell of old upholstery reminded him, remarkably, of the family boathouse on a cool autumn evening, when the season for fishing had passed and the canoes were stacked like hibernating creatures on the walls. He breathed it in and let the memory of better days ease the pain out of his cramped chest and twitching hands.

When he sat up, his skull felt huge and heavy, and he had the sensation that he was casting strange shadows against the wall. But then it passed.

"Mr. Graham...?"

Will looked behind him. He was in the cabin that had led him into the beast's pit, and propped up in an old armchair near the door was Elliot Buddish. He looked broken in every sense, and he had Will's gun in his lap. Will didn't quite trust his legs yet, so he crawled to Elliot's side.

"Elliot." He set his hands on Elliot's knees and smiled grimly up into his face. "I'm sorry you went through this because of me."

Elliot's head was bent at a strange angle, but he smiled back. "It's not your fault. I'm a monster, too."

Will blinked, and then before him was the angel he remembered from the church. It was just as broken and its wings sagged down either side of the chair in resignation. "You asked once," said Elliot, "if there was anything you could do for me." When Will nodded, he nudged the gun in his lap. "There is."

Will swallowed hard as he took the gun in his hand and stood. "Are you sure?"

"I'm already dead. It would be nice, to also be at peace." There was no telling his expression in the charred mass that made up his angelic face, but his voice was thick with emotion. "I hope you someday have peace, too, Mr. Graham."

"Thank you." Will pressed the muzzle against Elliot's head. "For everything. Rest in peace, Elliot."

After he had pulled the trigger enough times to make sure Elliot was gone, Will reloaded his handgun and moved deeper into the cabin. It was near the stove that he found Hannibal.

Hannibal was kneeling in front of the tub. His shoulders were slack and his chin tipped forward. Will thought he might be dead until he twitched and coughed. Blood dribbled over his slack jaw and joined the viscera already drooping from his gored chest cavity. His breath was wet and wheezing and his fingers were broken and askew. Will didn't even bother to lift his gun.

"You," said Hannibal but then he had to stop, using his wrist to nudge his jaw back into place so he could speak. "You and Mr. Buddish...you have a lot in common."

Will moved to Hannibal's side, watching him gasp and shudder as if from a place outside himself. He didn't have it in him to feel hurt or betrayal. "What do you mean?"

"You'll end up just like him. Your kind always do."

Will crouched down on the balls of his feet. "What kind are _you_?"

Hannibal struggled through several rough breaths before it became laughter. "What do you think I am, Will?"

"I think you're the Devil."

More laughter. "You flatter me. But no. I'm only...his echo."

The metal tub began its _clink clink clink_. Will glanced up at it, and almost missed the way Hannibal looked up at it, too, his eyes alert and afraid. "Tell me," Will persisted. "What are you?"

Hannibal continued to stare at the tub. "I was a boy," he whispered. "Just a boy, when the wolf came. It took the last thing precious to me, and then gave it back, as a seed in my belly." When he shook, Will could see his heart sag weakly through the gaps in his ribs. "A sin that could never be cleansed. A hunger that could never be sated."

The commotion from the tub grew louder, and Hannibal squirmed restlessly. "Just tell me plainly," Will pleaded. "Make me understand."

"I am telling you." Hannibal finally looked at Will. "I let the evil in, Will. To kill the wolf that killed my sister, I made myself a beast. And I do not regret it." He drooped again. "Whatever they made me, I regret nothing."

Will leaned back. He didn't know what to say, and was startled when he realized that the tub had gone silent. Carefully he pulled himself to his feet and looked inside.

At the bottom of the tub was a little girl. She couldn't have been more than four or five, with short, soft hair, and wrapped in a child's winter coat. Her bright blue eyes were wide open, frozen in the moment of her terrified death. When Will touched her cheek it was warm and soft, but she didn't move and wasn't breathing.

"Will," said Hannibal, with quiet sincerity that Will had never heard from him before. "Please, let me have her."

Will glanced between Hannibal and the girl several times, debating. At least he shoved his gun in his pocket and reached into the tub. As gently as he would if she were alive, he lifted the unfortunate girl out of the tub and laid her in Hannibal's arms. He had just enough strength to support her, and he looked upon her with reverence.

Will watched and didn't know what to make of his emotions. "What was her name?"

"Mischa." Hannibal stretched his broken hand, ignoring the cracking bones as he slipped his fingers through her hair. "Her name was Mischa." He sighed. "Thank you, Will. I have to admit, I'm not disappointed that it ended this way."

Will started to ask what he meant, but then Hannibal jerked his wrist. He pulled small Mischa's head back, and with an inhuman snarl he lunged forward, sinking his teeth into the pale flesh of her throat. Will reeled back. He couldn't breathe, gaping in shock as Hannibal swiftly began to devour his tiny prize. Before he could even form a conscious thought he snatched up his gun and fired into Hannibal's face. Over and over he squeezed, desperately emptying the magazine. When the last bullet had been expended Hannibal collapsed, crushing Mischa's body beneath his own and soaking her in his blood. Her head fit neatly in the gored out cave where his stomach had been.

Will fled the cabin. He could feel it disintegrating behind him, and he ran back through the woods, through the cemetery, until he was throwing open the great doors of Elliot's church. He felt top-heavy and faint; he sank into one of the pews with a sob. In the distance he sensed that the woods were falling away, and the tombstones, and the steps leading up to his sanctuary. Everything was crashing in on itself, slipping apart, growing thin. The church floor rotted beneath his feet and was replaced with cool grass. The walls folded in and let in gentle wind.

And a dog licked Will's face. He blinked and found himself sitting on the front steps of his home. There were dogs in the yard and half in his lap, happy and barking to each other. And for what felt like the first time in a lifetime, Will laughed.

When Alana found him, he was still laughing. She crouched down and touched his shoulder. "Will? Are you all right?"

"Yeah." Will wiped the tears from his eyes. He stared out over the meadow and found nothing waiting for him. "I will be."

# Ending 3: "Special"

Will stared up at the hospital ceiling. He was tired, more than he had ever been, and he wasn't in any way ready to move yet. The machine wasn't breathing for him anymore, so he had to take each breath slowly, carefully, trying not to hurt his healing neck. Hannibal was gone; he didn't know if he ought to be afraid or relieved. At least the stag seemed to be leaving him alone, for the time being. He wasn't in any state to even begin deciding on a course of action.

As Will stared, doing his best not to think of anything or anyone, he became suddenly aware of a weight on his shins. It took some tricky work but he was able to reach the bed controls, and slowly the head rose until he could see the source: Winston, draped across his legs.

Will frowned. "Winston." His expression quickly softened when Winston's tail began to wag. "What are you doing here?" he murmured. "Dogs aren't allowed in the hospital."

"I wanted to keep an eye on you," said Winston.

Will blinked, and he stared. He was slow to comprehend. "Oh...thank you."

Winston's ears perked. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm..." Will stared again. "I'm doing better, thanks. I um..."

"Yes?"

"Well, uh..." Will let out a little snort that jostled the oxygen tube in his nose. With his arms still cuffed to the bed he had to scrunch his face to correct it. "Am I dreaming?"

Winston panted. It sure looked like he was smiling. "Nope."

"I mean, am I....is this the Otherworld?"

"Nope," said Winston again. "You're in the real world, here with me."

"Oh." Will laughed and then winced. "Then you have some explaining to do," he said, playing along. "Because you never told me you could talk."

Winston's tail flicked. "I would have liked to tell you," he said, "but the others didn't think it would be a good idea. They said it would tarnish the experiment."

Will's heart skipped a beat when it finally dawned on him that something very real and very strange was happening. "What's going on? What are you talking about?"

"The experiment," Winston repeated, and with every word Will felt a little more light-headed. "We've been watching you, Will, to see what you could do with your extraordinary gifts. Introducing you to Hannibal Lecter was my idea. Pretty good, wasn't it? You accomplished a lot. Everyone is really impressed."

Will stretched his finger toward the nurse call button, but his hands were shaking, and it fumbled out of his reach. Sweat formed on his brow. "Everyone?" he echoed weakly.

"Yes," said Winston, showing teeth. "Everyone."

A bright light gleamed through the windows. At first it was merely clear and white, but it grew to such intensity that it filled the room with an almost physical presence. Will grimaced as it burned his weary eyes, leaving burned on his retina an image of tall, narrow figures moving about amidst the luminescence. Their long, gray fingers poked at his arms and face, and he couldn't get away.

"So impressed that you'll be coming home with us for a while," said Winston. Will could feel his paws padding up the mattress toward his face. "Don't worry, Will. We're going to take such good care of you."

Will yanked at the cuffs, but they held fast. He tried to scream but then the hands were over his mouth, silencing him. All the world was white, and then it was weightless--he was lifting off the bed, Winston still beside him, creatures all around. Gradually, his struggles ceased. It was almost even peaceful. At least _someone_ was taking care of him.

And then Will Graham was gone.


End file.
